Thrissur: Senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan who lost the Lok Sabha election from Thrissur seat to BJP’s Suresh Gopi on Tuesday announced that he won't contest elections anymore and would stay away from public life for some time.

Reacting to the election results, a miffed Muraleedharan said he would have won if he contested from his sitting seat of Vadakara. Muraleedharan was shifted to the Thrissur segment from Vadakara at the last minute by the party leadership. He was deployed to checkmate the popularity of Suresh Gopi in Thrissur as well as to undo the damage caused by the switching of his sister Padmaja Venugopal to BJP.

Muraleedharan said his disappointment would have been less if the Left candidate had won. "I have decided to stay away from contesting elections anymore because I have lost the mood to contest polls. My decision is to stay away from public life itself for some time," he said.

Expressing his displeasure against the Congress's national leadership, the former KPCC chief said Prime Minister Modi attended three rallies for Suresh Gopi while Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan campaigned for Sunil Kumar. "Only (Karnaaka deputy CM) D K Shivakumar came for me...Rahul Gandhi could not attend the programme here as he suffered food poisoning. But there were others who could have come," Muraleedharan said.

Suresh Gopi won the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat -- BJP’s maiden Lok Sabha account in the state -- by a remarkable margin of 74,686. While Suresh Gopi garnered a total of 4,12,338 votes, CPI’s V S Sunilkumar polled with 3,37,652 votes. Muraleedharan had to settle in the third position with 3,28,124 votes.