Sravasti Dasgupta 
New Delhi: The Congress on Tuesday (October 16) formally announced the candidature of party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Kerala’s Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, setting the stage for her electoral debut on November 13.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency was vacated by Gandhi Vadra’s brother, leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi earlier this year. Gandhi contested and won both Wayanad, and the Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) seats. In 2019, Gandhi who had lost the Lok Sabha elections from the family bastion of Amethi, was elected from Wayanad. In 2024, despite winning both seats, his winning margin narrowed in Wayanad. In 2019, Gandhi won by a margin of 4,31,770 votes, but in 2024 he defeated INDIA ally Communist Party of India (CPI)’s Annie Raja by a margin of 3,64,422 votes.
After the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had announced in June, that Gandhi would be retaining Rae Bareli while Gandhi Vadra would make her poll debut from Wayanad. If she wins, three members of the Gandhi family will be in parliament together, with Sonia Gandhi, moving to the Rajya Sabha earlier this year.
Despite the alliance on a national stage, INDIA allies Congress and CPI contested the elections in Wayanad – and also in the rest of Kerala – against each other. While the CPI had fielded Raja against Gandhi in the Lok Sabha elections, it has not yet announced a candidate for the bypolls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had fielded state party president K. Surendran, who came third in the Lok Sabha elections in Wayanad, has also not announced a candidate yet.
Though the BJP came third in Wayanad, it almost doubled its vote share from 2019 to about 13%.
Congress workers put up Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s posters in Wayanad. Photo: By arrangement.
While the BJP is yet to announce a candidate, former union minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar said that the people of Wayanad deserve a better candidate.
“The decision to send the sister there is only proving again and again that the entire Congress party revolves around this family of Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Robert Vadra, Sonia Gandhi and wherever there is a safe seat and a safe seat for them means a minority dominant constituency, they tend to pack off one of the family members to get safely elected,” he said to ANI.
“But these elections are about a bigger issue about what Rahul Gandhi did for Wayanad, how Rahul Gandhi betrayed the people of Wayanad by not telling them that he is going to contest also in Uttar Pradesh… I certainly believe that the people of Wayanad deserve better than Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi.”
Meanwhile Congress workers have put up posters that read “Wayanadinte Priyankari” (Wayanad’s beloved) after her name was formally announced for the upcoming bypolls.
Along with Wayanad, bypolls were also announced by the Election Commission of India on October 15 to two other seats in Kerala-Palakkad and Chelakkara. Here the Congress has fielded state youth Congress chief Rahul Maamkootathil and former Lok Sabha MP Ramya Haridas respectively.
The bypoll in Palakkad comes after sitting Congress MLA Shafi Parambil was elected to the Lok Sabha in June. The bypoll is expected to be hotly contested by the BJP after it came second in the 2021 assembly elections when Parambil defeated the “Metro Man” E. Sreedharan by a margin of 3,859 votes.
According to a report in Mathrubhumi, the state BJP is in the midst of a power struggle with three top leaders vying for the Palakkad ticket. The names of Surendran, state vice president Sobha Surendran and General Secretary C. Krishnakumar have been sent to the central leadership. Krishnakumar came third in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the seat.
Meanwhile the Congress-led UDF, the CPI-M-led LDF, and the BJP have all requested the ECI to change the date of the Palakkad bypoll due to the Kalpathi Ratholsavam festival.
In Chelakkara, while the Congress has fielded former MP Haridas, the seat has been with the CPI(M) since 1996. In the six elections since 1996, CPI(M)’s K Radhakrishnan won five times while U.R. Pradeep won it in 2016.