India
Updated : May 16, 2014, 03:24 PM IST
BJP has once again failed to open its account in Kerala, despite its senior leader O Rajagopal putting up a strong performance finishing runner-up to Congress's Shashi Tharoor in Thiruvananthapuram. Though Rajagopal led in the initial rounds of counting, his stock slid in the later stages and he lost to Tharoor by a margin of over 13,000 votes.
LDF candidate Bennet Abraham (CPI) finished third in one of the keenly-watched contests in the state capital of Thiruvanathapuram where the saffron party had pinned its hope of ending decades of electoral jinx.