In the Wayanad parliamentary constituency, Congress member Rahul Gandhi is contesting the Lok Sabha elections against Annie Raja, a leader of the Communist Party of India (CPI), who is a key partner in the opposition INDIA bloc.
With Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Kerala state president K Surendran in the fray, the battle for the seat has become triangular. Wayanad, along with 19 other seats of Kerala, will vote in the second phase of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on Friday, April 26.
Amethi uncertainty
Rahul Gandhi won the Wayanad seat by 431,000 votes – the highest margin in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Kerala. Rahul got 706,367 votes against LDF candidate PP Suneer's 274,597 votes. The BJP-led NDA had fielded BDJ (S) leader Tushar Vellapally, who secured 78,800 votes, about 7.25 percent of the total votes polled.
Also read: Lok Sabha elections 2024 phase 2 voting on April 26: Major candidates, complete list of all constituencies going to polls
The contest also assumes significance amid uncertainty over whether Rahul Gandhi will contest from Amethi, his previous seat in Uttar Pradesh, which he lost to Union Minister Smriti Irani in 2019.
The Congress, which is contesting the elections in UP in alliance with the INDIA bloc partner SP, is yet to announce candidates for the Amethi and Rae Bareli seats. Rahul's mother, Sonia Gandhi, who won the Rae Bareli seat in 2019, is now a member of Rajya Sabha.
PM Modi's Mission South
The stakes are high in 2024 thanks to Prime Minister Modi and BJP's efforts to make inroads in the south, including Kerala.
BJP candidate K Surendran is a prominent leader from north Kerala who became state president of the saffron party in 2020. In 2019, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from the Pathanamthitta seat but finished third in the race.
At a rally in Maharashtra earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the 'shahzada' (Rahul Gandhi) will also lose from the Wayanad seat this time.
Also read: Lok Sabha election 2024: Who is K Surendran, BJP's choice against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad?
In March, Surendran said that Rahul Gandhi will face “the same fate” in the Kerala seat during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as he met in Amethi of Uttar Pradesh in the 2019 general elections.
LDF Congress fight
The third candidate, Annie Raja, is the wife of CPI General Secretary D Raja. She is also general secretary of the party's National Federation of Indian Women. The CPI is an affiliate of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front in Kerala.
In recent weeks, Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala and CPI leader, has been critical of the Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi. Earlier this week, Vijayan called Rahul Gandhi an unserious and immature politician.
In 2019, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) won 19 of the 20 seats in Kerala. The Congress itself won fifteen seats, while its allies, the Indian Union Muslim League, won two seats, the Revolutionary Socialist Party one seat and the Kerala Congress (M) one seat. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) won one seat in Alappuzha.
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Published: Apr 25, 2024 1:28 PM IST