Shashi Tharoor, the Congress’s three-term Thiruvananthapuram MP who has been retained by the party for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, on Sunday responded to BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar, accepting the Union minister’s “challenge” for an open debate.

Tharoor also took a jibe at the BJP, claiming that it was the saffron party that had been evading the debate.

“Yes, I welcome a debate. But the people of Thiruvananthapuram are aware of who has been evading a debate till now. Let us debate politics and development. Let us debate price hike, unemployment, corruption, communalism, and the BJP’s 10 years of propagating politics of hatred,” the Thiruvananthapuram MP posted on X (formerly Twitter).

“Let us also discuss about the development of Thiruvananthapuram and the visible progress we have made in the last 15 years,” Tharoor added.

With his post, the Congress leader shared the clip of Chandrasekhar’s “challenge.”

“I am ready to debate over ideas, development, and whose track record is better. I have been saying this since the beginning,” the minister said, speaking to local media during the poll campaign.

Tharoor made his electoral debut from this Kerala seat in the 2009 general elections, and won. He retained it in the next two general elections (2014, 2019).

Apart from Tharoor and Chandrasekhar, Communist Party of India (CPI) veteran Pannyan Raveendran will stand from the constituency, which shares its name with the state Capital.

Thiruvananthapuram is among 20 Lok Sabha segments in Kerala. Voting on all the seats will be held on April 26, the second of the seven-phase Lok Sabha polls, which will begin on April 19 and conclude on June 1. The counting of votes for all 543 Lok Sabha seats will be conducted on June 4.