Continuing his winning streak for the third time, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday gained a victory over Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency by 99,989 votes.
Tharoor was pitted against BJP's Kummanam Rajasekharan and C Dinakaran of CPI(M). The current MP polled 416131 votes with 41.19 per cent vote share.
Political churn over the contentious Sabrimala issue helped Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) to emerge as a victorious with 19 seats out of total 20 in the seat.
"Since 1997, we never had such a good result in Kerala. We are winning 19 and we may as well all 20 seats. The state has become an exemplar for what the politics of the Congress nationally could be. I just hope we will be able to build from the very disappointing result nationally because ours is the right message for future growth and prosperity in India", Tharoor told , early in the day.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who could not put up a good show in his bastion in Uttar Pradesh' Amethi, won Wayanad Parliamentary constituency in Kerala by over four lakh votes.
However, the saffron wave that swept the entire country, could not make it way through Kerala. The BJP has not won a single seat in the state.
In 2014, the UDF won 12 seats and Left Democratic Front won eight seats.
Despite Kerala's landmark victory, Congress could only manage to get 49 seats while leading on other three seats. Whereas the BJP repeated its 2014 landslide victory with winning 287 seats so far.
( With inputs from ANI )