Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is all set to make her electoral debut from Kerala’s Wayanad on November 13 as the Election Commission on Tuesday announced dates for bypolls to two parliamentary constituencies and 48 assembly constituencies along with the schedule for the Maharashtra and Jharkhand elections.
After the Lok Sabha election results in June, the Congress had announced that Priyanka Gandhi would fight the Wayanad bypoll battle, after her brother and party leader Rahul Gandhi vacated the seat to retain the family pocket borough of Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh.
It was in 1999 that Priyanka Gandhi entered politics to campaign for her mother Sonia Gandhi against BJP candidate Arun Nehru in Amethi. However, she never threw her hat in the electoral ring despite several sections of the Congress pinning hopes on her to take her grandmother and mother’s legacy forward in Uttar Pradesh.
She was known for her troubleshooting skills though, a specimen of which was seen in 2017 when skirmishes erupted between Samajwadi Party and Congress as the latter demanded 110 seats while Akhilesh Yadav’s party offered 100.
By January 2019, she was made the party’s general secretary in eastern Uttar Pradesh, which houses Congress bastions Amethi and Raebareli. After Jyotiraditya Scindia’s exit from the party, by September 2020, she was appointed general secretary in-charge of the entire Uttar Pradesh.
However, in an organisational reshuffle in December 2023, she remained a general secretary but was divested of the charge of Uttar Pradesh.
Priyanka Gandhi’s selection from Wayanad is also part of the Congress party’s plans to expand its footprint down South, especially in Kerala. The party is in power in Karnataka and Telangana and rules Tamil Nadu with its ally DMK. Unlike the North, where BJP has a stronger presence, the Congress is keen to win over the South.
If Priyanka Gandhi wins from Wayanad, which is considered a safe seat for the Congress, it will be the first time that three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family will be in Parliament at the same time — Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi in Lok Sabha and Sonia Gandhi in Rajya Sabha.
Earlier, welcoming the decision to field Priyanka, senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said: “The workers and leaders of Congress have welcomed the news of Priyanka’s candidacy in Wayanad with great enthusiasm and excitement. If Rahul’s victory margin in this election was 3,60,000 votes, people of Wayanad will take Priyanka’s victory margin beyond 4,00,000. The Communist Party of India (CPI), which is part of the national INDIA bloc, should ideally support Priyanka in this by-election. Everyone saw what happened when they pitched a candidate against Rahul. I hope they wouldn’t make another Himalayan blunder.”
The constituency spreads over three districts – Kozhikode, Wayanad and Malappuram. While Mananthavady, Sulthan Bathery and Kalpetta are the Assembly segments in Wayanad, Thiruvambady falls in Kozhikode district and Nilambur, Eranad and Wandoor in Malappuram district.
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