Shashi Tharoor’s win in Trivandrum:Analysis

Nikhil — Sun, 17 May 2009 19:32:03 +0000

The dust has settled down.Now over to some number crunching.My 2 cents.

Shashi Tharoor got 44.3% of the total votes in the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary constituency.More than half of Vattiyoorkavu and Thiruvananthapuram Assembly Constituency voters voted for him(Fig-2).

Neelan and the much discussed Nadar factor(they form 18% of the PC) did not work much against Tharoor.Was it because of Neelan’s image?Or did the Nadars not believe that Neelan would get a cabinet berth in the Mayawati lead govt.Bah! Remember, Mayawati started her election campaign in Thiruvananthapuram, whatay colossal loss.

Fig-1:Thiruvananthapuram LS Polls 2009-Assembly Constituency wise-1

Just around 5% of Vattiyoorkavu and Kazhakootam voted for Neelan. Nemom’s 7% voted for him.On expected lines Neyyatinkara,Kovalam and Parasala had a lot of Neelan votes,but he still was behind CPI’s Ramachandran Nair in these assembly constituencies.Ramachandran Nair got about 31% of the total votes.

The order of the top two candidates was consistent across ACs.
PK Krishnadas (BJP) was at #3 in Nemom,Thiruvananthapuram,Vattiyoorkavu and Kazhakoottam assembly Constituencies;Neelan at #3 in Neyyatinkara,Kovalam and Parasala.Majority of Muslim votes across ACs should have gone to INC,while the major chunk of Muslim votes left in these ACs went to Neelan.(Eg.Kovalam)

So what worked for Tharoor?The neutral voters,the CPI-CPI(M) rift and the whole anti Left sentiment be it due to lack of development in the city, anti incumbency.The Christian votes would have predictably gone in favour of Shashi Tharoor.He has successfully tapped the Nair+Ezhava vote bank,I would conclude.All these together ended up in favor of Dr.Tharoor.Guess what I heard from someone before the elections,”orithiri vivaram ulla ellarum Tharoorine kodukku” turned out to be true.

Fig-2: Thiruvananthapuram LS Polls 2009-Assembly Constituency wise-2

Tharoor’s and Ramachandran Nair’s votes were more or less equally distributed across ACs.A slightly higher contribution to Tharoor’s kitty came from Thiruvananthapuram and Vattiyoorkavu ACs.With Parassala,Nemom and Kazhakkutam contributing over 15% to Ramachandran Nair’s votes,even here you could see a uniformity in the vote distribution across ACs.We should be proud of the voters of Vattiyoorkavu,Thiruvananthapuram AC,Kazhakoottam and Nemom for spoiling Neelan’s party.The Nadar+Dalit factor did play a part in getting most of Neelan’s votes;79% of his votes came from Neyyatinkara,Kovalam and Parassala.

Fig-3:Trivandrum LS Polls 2009-Candidate wise

Now, a look at how Thiruvanthapuram has been voting through the years(BSP not included as its only share worth mentioning was in 2009)

Fig:4-Vote Share Trend-Thiruvananthapuram(CPI,INC,BJP)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="436" caption="Fig:5- LokSabha Poll 2009-Votes"][/caption]Here is a link to the spreadsheet I made just to get a hang of the numbers.

Download the whole data sheet which includes a pivot table(3 of 4 sheets password protected,mail me if you need the password).Happy analyzing.

Right click,"Save as" to download

PS: On a lighter note, the candidate who is an MP even after losing,ya no points for guessing that, fared miserably.MP Gangadharan(NCP) whose clock was all over the place,got 2972 votes.Talk about pipe dreams or bad times.

Shashi Tharoor wins

Nikhil — Sat, 16 May 2009 06:43:54 +0000

Shashi Tharoor wins the parliamentary elections from Trivandrum,Kerala.Great news for Trivandrum,well deserved victory for Dr.Tharoor.

What next for Tharoor? External Affairs portfolio?

We will revisit his vision for the city,a year after.

(Photo: [Shashi Tharoor campaigning in Trivandrum](SAJABlogs))

Sheikh Al-Avalathi bin Nikhil » shashi

Shashi Tharoor’s win in Trivandrum:Analysis

Shashi Tharoor wins