Congress candidate Priyanka Gandhi is poised for a big win in her maiden electoral battle from Kerala’s Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, early trends suggest.
When 3,33,298 votes were counted till 10.40 am on Saturday, Priyanka had bagged 64.12 percent of the votes, while her rivals Sathyan Mokeri of LDF and Navy Haridas of BJP got 21.96 per cent and 12.34 per cent, respectively. The total polled votes in the constituency, which went to the by-election on November 13, were 9,52,543.
Congress had little to worry about as far as the bypoll outcome was concerned, and the focus of the campaign was to ensure the maximum margin for the high-profile candidate. Senior leaders had been working at the grassroots level, targeting a five lakh-plus majority for Priyanka, whose contest had brought the landslide-hit region to national limelight.
But, the constituency ended up recording a voter turnout of 64.72 per cent, the lowest polling percentage recorded in Wayanad since its formation in 2009. It had recorded 72.92 per cent of polling in the general election held earlier this year, and 80.33 per cent in 2019, when Rahul Gandhi had fought from the seat for the first time.
The turnout had raised concerns in Congress camp, but trends suggest the Congress-led UDF managed to bring its voters to polling booths. Congress has a weak organisational machinery there, but MLAs and MPs were given charges of each assembly constituency falling under Wayanad.
Priyanka had gone to every panchayat with at least one corner meeting as part of her campaign, much more than her brother Rahul Gandhi, who held only a few programmes in the constituency when he contested in April 2024 and 2019. Besides, Priyanka stayed back at the constituency on polling day and visited more booths than any other candidate.
The figures obtained from counting centres show that Priyanka is doing well across the constituency, where Muslims form 41 per cent of voters and Christians 13 per cent. BJP had focused on Christian areas in the constituency, giving special focus on the Waqf land row. However, counting in Christian areas also shows that voters have opted for Priyanka there too.
To back Priyanka’s local connect, the Congress had mobilised national leaders, mainly from Karnataka, to campaign for her.
Since Priyanka’s victory looked certain, the CPI(M)-led LDF and BJP-led NDA did not make significant efforts in the grassroots-level campaign, and neither party brought national leaders to campaign for their candidates. BJP had its Kerala in charge Prakash Javadekar as the only leader from outside Kerala who campaigned for party candidate Navya Haridas.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had only a day’s campaign in Wayanad, where he alleged that Priyanka is fighting the elections with the backing of Jamaat-e-Islami, which is “standing for Islamic regime”.
In the Lok Sabha elections held in April, 2024, Rahul had won with a margin of 3.64 lakh votes and he pocketed 59.69 per cent of the polled votes. At the time, LDF had bagged 29.09 per cent of the votes and BJP 13 per cent. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Rahul bagged 64 per cent of the polled votes.