Priyanka Gandhi to file nomination for Wayanad bypoll on 23 Oct

Congress general-secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will file her nomination for the Wayanad Lok Sabha by-poll on Wednesday, party sources said. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will be present on the occasion, they said.

Ahead of her nomination filing, Priyanka Gandhi met Kharge on 21 October, Monday, and sought his blessings.

On Wednesday, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi will also lead a roadshow from Kalpetta New Bus Stand at 11.00 am. The nomination will be filed before the district collector at 12 noon, the sources said.

Priyanka is the Congress-led UDF (United Democratic Front) candidate for the Wayanad parliamentary by-election. "She will officially file her nomination on Wednesday before the returning officer in Kalpetta," a source said.

Congress chief ministers, along with prominent national and state leaders, are also likely to be present to show their support, the sources said.

With the Election Commission (EC) announcing the bypoll to the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat last week, the stage was set for Priyanka's electoral debut from the Kerala constituency, which could see her enter Parliament five years after joining active politics.

Soon after the EC announced the Wayanad bypoll, the Congress declared that Priyanka (52) would be its candidate from the seat in Kerala.

With the Congress fielding the party general-secretary from Wayanad, party workers had put up posters in the constituency which read 'Wayanadinte priyankari (Wayanad's beloved)'.

Days after the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had announced in June itself that Rahul Gandhi would retain the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh and vacate the Wayanad seat in Kerala, from where his sister Priyanka would make her electoral debut.

If elected, this will be the first time that Priyanka will enter Parliament as an MP. This will also be the first time that the three Gandhi family members — Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka — will be in Parliament together.

The EC last Tuesday announced bypolls to the Wayanad and Nanded Lok Sabha seats as well as in 48 Assembly constituencies.

The bypoll to the Wayanad parliamentary seat and 47 Assembly seats will be held on 13 November, along with the first phase of polling for the Jharkhand Assembly. The results will be announced on 23 November.

Since her entry into active politics in 2019, Priyanka has often been projected as a possible challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi and also as a successor to Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi in the family pocket borough of Rae Bareli.

However, the Congress has decided to field her from Wayanad, the parliamentary seat that her elder brother Rahul won for two consecutive elections. Priyanka was earlier the Congress in-charge of Uttar Pradesh.

She emerged as the party's strategist and star campaigner, helping the Congress make impressive gains in some states as well as in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier in the year.

After her name was announced for the Wayanad bypoll in June, Priyanka had said, "I am not nervous at all.... I am very happy to be able to represent Wayanad. All I will say is that I will not let them feel his (Rahul Gandhi's) absence. I will work hard and try my best to make everybody happy and be a good representative.

"I have a good relationship with Rae Bareli as I worked there for 20 years and that relationship will never break," she had said, adding that both she and her brother would work together in both constituencies.

Priyanka's poll debut comes at a time when the Congress has been jolted by an electoral defeat in Haryana and it would be interesting to see if she is able to steer the Wayanad campaign, along with canvassing for the Jharkhand and Maharashtra polls, to put the grand old party back on track.