The Congress-led UDF, as per latest figures, is surging ahead in the Kerala Lok Sabha elections. According to Election Commission data released on Tuesday, BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar widened his advantage over Congressman Shashi Tharoor in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency by more than 22,000 votes. Chandrasekhar and Tharoor were in a dead heat early in the counting process, each taking a lead of several thousand votes. But by midday, the BJP leader had established a sizable lead over Tharoor, who is vying for the Thiruvananthapuram LS seat a record four times. Chandrasekhar received 1,77,269 votes at noon, while Tharoor received 1,54,309 votes, according to EC estimates. With 1,22,258 votes, Pannian Ravindran of the CPI came in third.

As the vote counting in the segment continued, AICC General Secretary K C Venugopal increased his lead to 11,833 votes in the Alappuzha constituency of Kerala. Leader of the CPI (M) and current MP A M Ariff is currently trailing as Venugopal has been progressively extending his lead.

In the 2019 elections, Ariff was the only Left MP from the southern state to make it into the Lok Sabha. Shobha Surendran, a senior BJP leader, is ranked third. In the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat, actor-politician and BJP candidate Suresh Gopi expanded his lead over his closest competitors by more than 8,000 votes, as per the preliminary results released by the Election Commission.

With more than 56,000 votes so far, Gopi’s closest competitors are V S Sunilkumar of the LDF, who has more than 47,000 votes, and K Muraleedharan of the Congress, who is in third place with about 40,000 votes.

Both the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the 2021 state assembly elections saw the actor lose from Thrissur.