UPA ministers from Kerala salvage some pride

Even as their colleagues in the ministerial council led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went down to humiliating defeats across India, union ministers hailing from Kerala have managed to salvage some pride for the Congress.

All the five central ministers from Kerala contesting the 2014 general election have managed to retain their respective seats.

In the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram constituency, fortunes may have fluctuated during the counting process for Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor, but he finally did manage to pip his main rival O. Rajagopal of the Bharatiya Janata Party to the post.

However, Tharoor's winning margin was whittled down considerably from a staggering 99,998 votes in 2009 to a mere 14,501 this time.

Minister of State for Labour Kodikunnil Suresh retained his Mavelikara seat defeating his traditional rival Chengera Surendran of the Communist Party of India (CPI) by a margin of 32,330 votes.

In Alappuzha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation K.C. Venugopal won for a second time, defeating his nearest Communist Party of India-Marxist rival C.B. Chandrababu by a margin of 20,379 votes.

In Ernakulam, Food, Public Distribution, Consumer Affairs Minister (independent charge) K.V. Thomas retained his Ernakulam seat with a handsome margin of 87,047 votes, defeating former bureaucrat and Left-supported Independent candidate Christie Fernandes.

Another close battle was witnessed in the Vadakara seat where union Minister of State for Home Mulapally Ramachandran retained the seat with a slender margin of 3,306 votes.

Of the 20 seats in the southern state, Congress won eight and its allies won four -- the Indian Union Muslim League won two, and the Kerala Congress-Mani and the Revolutionary Socialist Party won a seat apiece.

The Left and its allies won eight seats. The CPI-M won five, the CPI won one and the two remaining seats were won by Left-supported Independents.