In the 2011 Assembly elections he contested from the Nemom constituency in Thiruvananthapuram, but eventually lost by a margin of 6,400 votes. He lost the by-election from Neyyattinkara, which was held on 2 June 2012. However, he increased the BJP votes from 6,730 (2011 Assembly Election) to 30,507; an almost five-fold increase within a span of a year. The BJP vote share also significantly increased from 6.0% in the 2011 election to 23.2%. He contested from Thiruvananthapuram for the fourth time in 2014 and finished second position, behind INC candidate Shashi Tharoor who was former UPA Minister at the central government. Rajagopal secured a total of 2,82,336 votes (32.3%) and lost by a margin of 15,470 votes (1.8%) against Tharoor, who had secured 2,97,806 votes.