Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is all set to file his nomination papers for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, held a roadshow on Wednesday in Kerala’s Wayanad where he had won in the 2019 Parliament polls with a massive margin of over four lakh votes.
Thousands of party workers and supporters turned up for the roadshow.
The Congress leader was accompanied by his sister Priyanka Gandhi and AICC general secretaries K C Venugopal and Deepa Dasmunshi as well as Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan and KPCC acting president M M Hassan.
Communist Party of India (CPI) Lok Sabha candidate from Wayanad, Annie Raja also filed her nomination on Wednesday.
The CPI is a partner of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front in Kerala.
While the CPI and the Congress are partners in the opposition INDIA bloc, the two parties are fierce contenders in Kerala with both parties pitting their strongest candidates against each other.
However, several leaders from the opposition, including Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan have criticised Rahul Gandhi for contesting in the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency against Annie Raja.
Addressing the media ahead of the election campaign in Kozhikode on Monday, the Chief Minister said, “Rahul Gandhi is contesting against Annie Raja, who is a well-known left leader nationally. She strongly called out the Bharatiya Janata Party’s government (BJP) in the Manipur issue and she was attacked by calling her anti-national. But what is Rahul Gandhi’s role in this? We can see Annie Raja’s presence in every protest that is happening in the country. But we can’t see Rahul Gandhi, a prominent leader in Congress, among such protesters.”
Both Rahul Gandhi and Annie Raja are contesting from Wayanad constituency. The BJP has fielded Kerala State President K Surendran as a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate from the constituency.
Subhashini Ali, a leader of the CPI (M) that is part of the INDIA alliance also questioned the candidature of Rahul Gandhi from the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency against the Left Democratic Front (LDF) candidate Annie Raja, asking why the Congress leader is not fighting the BJP head-on.
Shubhashini, while speaking to ANI said that the Wayanad sitting MP should fight from the BJP’s bastion- Uttar Pradesh.
“Congress Party is claiming that they are leading the joint fight against the BJP. Then why is their biggest leader contesting elections from Kerala, where there is no fight with the BJP? He should fight from Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP has the biggest stronghold. If he defeats the BJP there, it will have a huge impact,” she said.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Rahul Gandhi won from Wayanad with a huge margin of over 4.31 lakh votes; the highest margin in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Kerala. He secured 64.94 per cent vote share defeating LDF candidate PP Suneer. The NDA had fielded BDJ(S) leader Tushar Vellapally who secured just around 78,000 votes which accounted for a mere 7.25 per cent.
The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) won 19 out of 20 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. While the Congress won 15 seats, its allies Indian Union Muslim League won two seats, the Revolutionary Socialist Party won one and the Kerala Congress (M) won one seat.
The Communist Party Of India (Marxist) won one seat in Alappuzha.
