If Priyanka wins Wayanad, entire Gandhi family will be in Parliament

The stage is set for Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's electoral debut from the Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency which could see her enter Parliament five years after joining active politics.

Congress party announced her candidature soon after the Election Commission of India (ECI) set the Wayanad byelection for November 13. Priyanka Gandhi's poll debut comes at a time when the Congress faced electoral defeat in Haryana.

"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," Priyanka Gandhi said after her candidature was announced. 

With the Congress fielding Ms Vadera, the AICC general secretary,  from Wayanad, party workers put up posters across the constituency that described her as Wayanadinte Priyankari (Wayanad's beloved).

Priyanka's brother, former Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi, and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh in Lok Sabha elections 2024 won the seat. Days after the June 4 results, the Congress announced that Rahul would retain Rae Bareli and vacate Wayanad paving the way for his sister to make her electoral debut.

If elected, it will be the first time Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will become an MP. This will also be the first time the three Gandhi family members – Sonia Gandhi, Rahul, and Priyanka – will be in Parliament together. Rahul Gandhi is a Lok Sabha MP and Sonia Gandhi is a member of Rajya Sabha.

The ECI on Tuesday announced by-polls to the Wayanad and Nanded Lok Sabha seats along with 48 Assembly constituencies. For the Wayanad parliamentary seat and 47 Assembly seats, the bypolls will be held on November 13, along with the first phase of polling for the Jharkhand Assembly.

Active in Congress politics since 2019

Since she entered active politics in 2019, Priyanka Gandhi has often been projected as a possible challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi and also as a successor to Sonia Gandhi in the family bastion Rae Bareli. However, the Congress decided to field her from Wayanad, the parliamentary seat that her elder brother Rahul won for two consecutive elections.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was earlier in charge of the Congress electoral efforts in Uttar Pradesh in 2020; the party lost the election badly. She gradually emerged as the party's strategist and star campaigner, helping the Congress make impressive gains in some States and the Lok Sabha polls held earlier in the year.

Priyanka Gandhi was made the Congress general secretary in charge of the crucial eastern Uttar Pradesh region in January 2019 and then the general secretary in charge of the entire state. In December 2023, Priyanka Gandhi was made a Congress general secretary "without a portfolio". She emerged as the party's key strategist and later, its star campaigner for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

She also helped strengthen the organisation and led the party's campaign in Himachal Pradesh, where the grand old party wrested power from the BJP. Her campaign helped the Congress in the general election, in which the party got 99 seats, up from 52 in 2019.

With the Congress putting up a surprisingly good show in the Lok Sabha polls, Priyanka Gandhi cemented her position as the party's talisman. Priyanka Gandhi's poll debut comes at a time when the Congress faced electoral defeat in Haryana.

What remains to be seen is if she would be able to steer the Wayanad campaign, along with the canvassing for the Jharkhand and Maharashtra polls, to put the Congress back on track.

(By arrangement with livemint.com)