Priyanka retains Wayanad LS seat for Congress with huge margin of 4.1lakh votes
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan congratulated the winners of the Wayanad LS and Palakkad and Chelakkara assembly bypolls.
PTI
Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra flashes victory sign (PTI)
WAYANAD: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday scored her maiden electoral victory from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala with a huge margin of over 4.1 lakh votes to retain the hill constituency, won by her brother Rahul Gandhi in the LS polls earlier this year.
While BJP candidate Navya Haridas attributed Priyanka's win to the "long political tradition" in the constituency of supporting the Congress, CPI(M)-led LDF's Sathyan Mokeri claimed it was due to "the focus on Gandhi family's sacrifices" like the killings of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi to evoke the people's sentiments.
Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan congratulated the winners of the Wayanad LS and Palakkad and Chelakkara assembly bypolls.
Priyanka got 6,22,338 votes which was 4,10,931 votes more than Mokeri's tally of 2,11,407.
Mokeri's tally was also more than 70,000 votes less than what CPI's Annie Raja got in the 2024 LS polls in April this year in Wayanad. She had secured 2,83,023 votes.
The Left veteran said that the LDF and its constituent parties will examine the reasons behind the reduction in the votes received by the front.
"The Left front and its parties will also examine whether a decline in the voter turnout also resulted in the drop in LDF votes," he added.
The LS poll turnout in Wayanad, which has over 14 lakh registered voters, was close to 74 per cent in April, but had declined to 65 per cent in the by-election in November.
Mokeri said that the LDF bypoll campaign was carried out very efficiently in the hill constituency, but that is when the Congress raised the "emotional and sensitive issues".
He said that the entire Congress leadership camped out in Wayanad and their strategy was to not focus on developmental issues and politics and instead to "highlight the traditions and sacrifices of the Nehru family to sway the emotions of the people".
"They (Congress) focused upon the sacrifices of the Gandhi family, including the martyrdom of Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi to create an emotional image of Priyanka in the minds of the people and evoke their sentiments for her," Mokeri told media here after the results were declared.
Haridas, who came third with 1,09,939 votes which was around 32,000 less than K Surendran's tally of 1,41,045 votes in the April LS polls in Wayanad, said that she "accepts" her defeat in the bypoll.
She contended that while the BJP focused on developmental issues and needs of the public to seek their votes, the people of Wayanad followed the political tradition of supporting the Congress.
Right from the start of counting of votes, beginning with the postal ballots, Priyanka was clearly in the lead which kept getting bigger as the counting progressed.
As she gained a huge lead over her rivals, leaders of the Congress and its ally, the IUML, predicted a significant victory for her.
They also predicted that she would cross the lead achieved by her brother, Rahul Gandhi, in the LS polls held in April in Wayanad.
Rahul, in the 2024 LS polls in Wayanad, had got 6,47,445 votes to win with a victory margin of 3,64,422 votes.
Priyanka's husband, Robert Vadra, told reporters in Delhi that his wife was "breaking all records and the trends show the love and affection she has received from the people of Wayanad.
