WAYANAD (KERALA) — Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday surpassed the 3.64 lakh lead achieved by her brother Rahul Gandhi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, as she comfortably cruises towards her maiden electoral win from the Wayanad seat in Kerala.
As the counting progressed in the hill constituency, leaders of the Congress and its ally, the IUML, predicted a significant victory for her.
The Congress-led UDF's candidate, Priyanka, extended her lead over her rivals by over 4.1 lakh votes after nearly seven hours of counting of the ballots in the Wayanad Lok Sabha bypoll, according to the Election Commission.
VIDEO | Wayanad Bypoll: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) leaves from the AICC office in Delhi.
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) November 23, 2024
The Congress-led UDF's candidate, Priyanka, extended her lead over her rivals by over 4.1 lakh votes after nearly seven hours of counting of the ballots in the… pic.twitter.com/SgQNAq9MKx
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Reacting to the lead achieved by Priyanka, Congress' ally Indian Union Muslim League and Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy said she would get more votes than her brother Rahul Gandhi in the Lok Sabha polls in April this year and will win by a record margin.
"An amazing first trend on counting day is the massive early lead for our leader @priyankagandhi ji in Wayanad, Kerala, by-election. People of Wayanad are surely going to record in victory margins today and Priyanka ji will make Parliamentary debut with a grand win," Reddy said in a post on 'X'.
IUML supremo Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal said that going by the trends, Priyanka will get more votes than what Rahul got and the majority she achieves would also be higher than that of her brother.
A similar view was expressed by IUML's national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty.
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.
"We are very very thankful to the people of Wayanad for electing her as their representative in the Parliament. I think they (people of Wayanad) made the right decision because she will fight for them and all the issues in Wayanad.
"Whenever she is committed to something, she puts her heart and soul into it and you will be seeing a lot more of her in Wayanad and if required, I will also be there," he said.
On the other hand, BJP leader Anil K Antony, earlier in the day, had claimed that though Priyanka has achieved a good lead, her victory margin would be less than what Rahul got in the 2024 and 2019 LS polls in the hill constituency.
According to the latest EC figures, Priyanka had a lead of 4,10,931 with 6,22,338 votes. LDF's Sathyan Mokeri was behind her with 2,11,407 votes and NDA's Navya Haridas was in the third spot with 1,09,939 votes.
Rahul had got 6,47,445 votes and won by a margin of 3,64,422 votes against his nearest rival, CPI's Annie Raja, in the LS polls this year. In 2019, he had got 7,06,367 votes and had won by a margin of 4,31,770 votes.
However, the bypoll turnout in Wayanad, which has over 14 lakh registered voters, was around 65 per cent, a decline from the close to 74 per cent in the LS polls held in April this year and much lower than the over 80 per cent turnout in the hill constituency in the 2019 general elections.
After winning from Rae Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh as well, in this year's polls, Rahul vacated the Wayanad seat, and the party nominated his sister Priyanka, paving the way for her electoral debut.
The counting of votes commenced at 8 am with postal ballots being taken up first.
The strong rooms, where the EVMs were kept, were opened more than an hour before counting began.
The bypoll for the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat was held on November 13.
Of the 16 candidates who contested, the main contenders were Priyanka, ruling CPI(M)-led LDF's Sathyan Mokeri, a political veteran, and BJP-headed NDA's Navya Haridas.