Shashi Tharoor & Muraleedharan confident of victory

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Unfazed by the exit polls by leading national media houses that predicted his loss in Thiruvananthapuram, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor exuded confidence of repeating his winning streak.

“I never predict either cricket scores or election numbers. I can definitely vouch that we are winning comfortably,” Tharoor told TNIE.

Asserting that he doesn’t believe in exit polls, Tharoor said, “I’ve no idea what is the size of the samples that ‘give’ NDA three seats in Kerala, but even one would fly in the face of the ground reality apparent to all of us who contested elections.”

“Exit polls in India are neither scientific nor reliable. You will recall that exit polls had Congress winning Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh handsomely last year, and losing Rajasthan badly. But in reality, we lost the first two quite clearly and Rajasthan only narrowly.” he said.

Senior leader and Congress candidate from Thrissur, another seat where the exit polls predicted a BJP win, K Muraleedharan also rubbished the projections.

“The BJP is hoping that they would get majority of the Hindu votes and minority votes would be divided among the UDF and LDF candidates. One should realise that there has been a strong Christian as well as Muslim consolidation. The UDF may not get the 2019 margin of 93,633 votes this time. But I can definitely say that we are going to win with a comfortable margin. BJP will be pushed to the third position,” he said.