8 mins in UPA-II, Kerala may wind up without none under Modi

The southern state of Kerala, which had a large contingent of ministers in outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Cabinet, may not be sure whether it will get any ministerial berth at all in the Narendra Modi government.
BJP's Kerala unit Chief V Muraleedharan said that as the party drew a blank in the state in Lok Sabha polls, it is not sure whether somebody from the state will be included in the new ministry.
"BJP does not have MPs from Kerala. So, I don't expect Kerala's representation in the Union Cabinet. But it is the discretion of the PM as to who is made a minister," he told PTI.

Muraleedharan, who was vice-chairman of the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) during the previous NDA regime, said he was certain that the Modi government will pay adequate attention to Kerala's developmental needs.
Kerala had eight ministers in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet and two of them enjoyed Cabinet rank -- senior Congress leaders AK Antony (Defence) and Vayalar Ravi (Overseas Indian Affairs).
While Antony and Ravi are Rajya Sabha members, five Congress ministers of state in the outgoing government -- Shashi Tharoor, Mullappally Ramachandran, KC Venugopal, KV Thomas and Kodikunnil Suresh -- won the polls this time from Kerala by a lesser margin than in the previous 2009 elections.

Veteran IUML leader E Ahmed, who was Minister of State for External Affairs in the UPA government, retained his seat by a huge margin.

Although BJP could not win a single Lok Sabha seat in the state, its vote share increased this time to 10.8 per cent. The saffron party's vote share in the state was 6.4 per cent in 2009.
Kerala has 20 Lok Sabha constituencies of which Congress won eight in the just-concluded elections followed by CPI(M) with five seats. And, while CPI, Kerala Congress (M) and RSP won one seat each, IUML and Independents bagged two apiece.

Veteran BJP leader O Rajagopal, who contested from the Thiruvananthapuram seat, gave a tough fight to sitting MP Tharoor. He was leading even after 85 per cent of the votes had been counted, but Tharoor managed to edge past by a margin of just 15,470 votes in the final stages of counting.
Rajagopal was a Minister of State in the former Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and had been elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.
There has been talk this time about the possibility that a senior party leader from Kerala will be made a BJP Rajya Sabha member from some other state before being handed a ministerial berth.