Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday held a massive roadshow in Kerala’s Wayanad, who is all set to file his nomination papers for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Notably, Gandhi had previously won in the 2019 Parliament elections from Wayanad with a massive margin of over four lakh votes.
Visuals show a sea of supporters rallying with Gandhi, accompanied by his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra 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.
On the same day, Communist Party of India (CPI) Lok Sabha candidate from Wayanad, Annie Raja also filed her nomination. 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.
Moreover, several leaders from the opposition, including Kerala's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan have criticised Rahul Gandhi for contesting in Wayanad against Annie Raja.
On Monday, while addressing the media ahead of the election campaign in Kozhikode, Kerala CM Vijayan 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."
Meanwhile, the BJP has fielded Kerala State President K Surendran as a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate from the constituency.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, 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.