Rahul Gandhi leads in Wayanad as Shashi Tharoor trails in Thiruvananthapuram

Wayanad: The Wayanad constituency voted on April 23 in the third phase of Lok Sabha election. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, CPI(M) PP Suneer and Bharath Dharma Jana Sena's (a BJP ally) Thushar Vellappally were the key candidates in the fray in 2019 election.

Presently, Rahul Gandhi is leading in Wayanad. The constituency was not of key importance in the state, until 2019. It gained prominence after Congress chief Rahul Gandhi decided to be the party's representative from Wayanad. Rahul Gandhi chose Wayanad as his second seat for the Lok Sabha election. Rahul Gandhi is also contesting polls from Amethi, one of Congress party's bastion, and has been winning the seat for the past three consecutive terms. However, he is trailing in Amethi currently.

The district of Wayanad in Kerala recorded one of the highest voter turnout - 67.35%.  The exit polls predicted that the UDF will get more than half of the seats in Kerala, which is home to 20 Lok Sabha constituencies. The exit polls also predicted that NDA will open an account in Kerala by winning the Thiruvananthapuram seat.

Wayanad leaders also claimed that after 20 years, this is the first time where a vast voter turnout has been witnessed. Congress candidate Rahul Gandhi, NDA candidate Thushar Vellappally and CPI candidate PP Suneer are the key candidates from Wayanad. 

The campaign during Kerala’s 2019 Lok Sabha polls had undergone a sea change ever since the arrival of Congress president Rahul Gandhi as a contestant in the Wayanad segment. The RaGa effect has inadvertently helped the UDF a lot in most of the segments, particularly in the Malabar region. Even before RaGa play, the embers of the emotive Sabarimala issue, after an intense standoff  between the right wing groups and the LDF government in the state over the entry of young women into the famous shrine, was lying as campaign stock.
 

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