Spotlight on Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's electoral debut in Wayanad bypolls

With the Election Commission (EC) announcing the by-polls for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, the stage is set for Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's electoral debut from the Kerala constituency that could see her enter Parliament five years after joining active politics.

Soon after the EC announced the Wayanad by-poll, the Congress declared that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (52) would be its candidate from this seat in Kerala.

With the Congress fielding the AICC general secretary from Wayanad, party workers put up posters in the constituency which read: "Wayanadinte Priyankari (Wayanad's beloved)".

Days after the Lok Sabha polls, in June itself, the Congress had announced 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 Gandhi Vadra would make her electoral debut.

If elected, this will be Gandhi Vadra's entry into Parliament as an MP.

This will also be the first time that three Gandhi family members — Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka — will be in Parliament together.

The EC on Tuesday announced by-polls to the Wayanad and Nanded Lok Sabha seats as well as in 48 assembly constituencies.

The by-poll 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.

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 Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi in the family borough of Rae Bareli.

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

She has emerged as one of the party's key strategists and star campaigners, 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."

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress leaderAll 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," she had added.

"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 the constituencies.

After she took the political plunge, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was made the Congress general secretary in charge of the crucial eastern Uttar Pradesh region in January 2019 and then became the general secretary in charge of the entire state.

In December 2023, Priyanka 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 back power from the BJP. Her campaign also 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 cemented her position as the party's talisman.

Countering Modi over his "gold and mangalsutra" remarks during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, an emotionally charged Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had reminded the voters that her mother, for the country.

The Congress general secretary did not take the electoral plunge at that time but opted to contest the Wayanad by-poll after guiding her party to a stronger position in Parliament, compared to its tally of seats in 2014 and 2019.

Often referring to her childhood, the pain of her father Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and her mother's grief, she had steered the Congress' campaign during the general election, adroitly walking the tightrope between striking a familial chord and discussing national-level issues.

She proved to be a strategist, orator and mass mobiliser all rolled into one.

As the curtains came down on the 2024 general election, analysts totted up the numbers.

Priyanka took part in 108 public meetings and roadshows. She campaigned in 16 states and one union territory, and also addressed two party workers' conferences in Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.

Most of her speeches were akin to a conversation with the crowd, establishing a connect and giving people the impression that here was a person who was known to them, someone sharing her feelings and thoughts with them easily.

She had also accompanied Rahul Gandhi to Wayanad following the devastating landslides in the region in July, and has been involved in the relief-and-rescue work launched by the party since.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's poll debut comes at a time when the Congress has been jolted by an electoral defeat in Haryana all too recently. It will be interesting to see if she can steer the Wayanad campaign, along with the canvassing for the Jharkhand and Maharashtra polls, in a way that puts the grand old party back on track.