Wayanad (Kerala): Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will mark her electoral debut by filing her nomination papers today for the upcoming Lok Sabha by-poll in Wayanad.
Priyanka arrived in the hill district on Tuesday night along with her mother, Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi reached the district subsequently. They will be accompanying Priyanka when she files her nomination papers before the District Collector.
If she wins, Priyanka will be the third member of her family in Parliament along with her mother Sonia Gandhi, who is a Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan and the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson, and her brother Rahul Gandhi, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rae Bareli MP.
But won’t having three Gandhis in Parliament only serve to strengthen the BJP’s attacks on the Congress over “dynasty politics” and its jibes of the “Shahi Parivar” running the party?
Evidently, yes. But the thinking within the Congress when Priyanka was nominated in June — a couple of weeks after the Lok Sabha election results gave a massive boost to the party — was that the BJP would continue attacking it along these lines as long as the family continues to be its beating heart, no matter how many of them get into Parliament. Some Congress leaders at the time felt Priyanka would not have decided to contest had the BJP returned to power with a 300-plus mandate. But with the BJP appearing vulnerable after the parliamentary polls, it seemed to be a sound move.
Politically things have shifted quite a bit since then, especially after the Congress’s loss in Haryana, a state it was expected to win. How the picture looks for the Opposition party on November 23 will depend to a large degree on whether it manages to dislodge the BJP and its allies in Maharashtra. And with Priyanka expected to win from Wayand, sharp exchanges in Parliament between the Narendra Modi government and the brother-sister duo, come the Winter Session, are a distinct possibility.
But first, Priyanka has to win Wayanad and if there is anything we know, nothing in politics is a foregone conclusion. The Congress general secretary faces veteran Left leader Sathyan Mokeri of the CPI and Kozhikode municipal councillor Navya Haridas of the BJP. The Congress has to figure out how to fix organisational shortcomings that saw her brother’s vote share dip from an exceedingly high 64.64% to a still pretty high 59.69%. Of the seven Assembly segments that make up the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, Rahul Gandhi’s votes dropped sharply in Kalpetta, Mananthavady, and Sulthan Bathery and this is where the party has to put in the work.
Priyanka arrived in Wayanad with her mother on Tuesday evening. Accompanied by her brother, she will lead a roadshow from the Kalpetta new bus stand starting at 11 am. She is expected to submit the nomination papers to the district collector before noon. Apart from the Gandhis, the CMs of other Congress-ruled states and various senior leaders of the party are also expected to be in Wayanad.
While Priyanka files her nomination, the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance is set to announce its seat-sharing agreement for the Maharashtra Assembly elections at a press conference in Mumbai in the afternoon. The breakthrough came after a marathon day-long meeting on Tuesday.
