Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is set to make her electoral debut, will visit Kerala’s Wayanad on October 23 to file her nomination papers, sources said on Saturday.
According to top Congress sources, Priyanka Gandhi will be accompanied by her brother, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi. The source added that before filing her nomination, Priyanka Gandhi will hold a mega roadshow in Wayanad.
In addition to the Gandhi siblings, several top Congress leaders will be present in Wayanad for the event.
Rahul Gandhi had previously won from both Wayanad and Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. However, he chose to represent Rae Bareli, as his mother and Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, had vacated the seat after she moved to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan earlier this year.
Sonia Gandhi wrote an emotional letter to the people of Rae Bareli, expressing her gratitude for their support to the Gandhi family during difficult times.
During the Lok Sabha election campaign, Sonia Gandhi appealed to the people of Rae Bareli, stating that she was entrusting her son to them and asking them to take care of him. Both Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi stood by her side on stage as she made the emotional appeal.
In the previous elections, Rahul Gandhi had defeated CPI’s Annie Raja by a margin of 3.6 lakh votes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he had defeated CPI’s PP Suneer by a margin of 4.31 lakh votes.
This time, Priyanka Gandhi will face CPI’s Satyam Mokeri, a national council member of the party. Mokeri had contested against Congress leader MI Shanavas in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but lost by over 20,000 votes. A former three-term MLA from Nandapuram (1987–2001), Mokeri remains a prominent figure. The BJP is yet to announce its candidate for the Wayanad bypolls.
This is not the first time a member of the Gandhi family has contested from South India. In the 1978 bypolls, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi contested from the Chikmagalur seat and won. In 1980, she contested from Medak, in the now Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh, and also won. She retained the Medak seat until her assassination in 1984, despite winning Rae Bareli.
In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, Sonia Gandhi made her political debut, contesting from both Amethi and Bellary in Karnataka. She defeated BJP’s Sushma Swaraj in Bellary but chose to retain the family stronghold of Amethi until 2004 when she vacated the seat for her son, Rahul Gandhi, who made his political debut that year.
Rahul Gandhi won Amethi consecutively in 2004, 2009, and 2014 but lost to BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019 by a margin of over 50,000 votes.
The bypolls in Wayanad are scheduled for November 13, with the counting of votes set for November 23.