Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who made her poll debut from Wayanad, a seat that was earlier represented in the Lok Sabha by her brother, Rahul Gandhi is leading in early trends. After the second round of counting, Priyanka Gandhi is leading by a margin of 34019 votes. Earlier in the first round of counting she was leading by a margin of 24227 votes. The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 Assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Elaborate arrangements have been made for the counting of the votes polled in the three bypolls in Kerala -- Wayanad Lok Sabha and the Palakkad and Chelakkara Assembly seats. In Wayanad, Priyanka Gandhi was pitted against Communist Party of India (CPI) veteran Sathyan Mokeri and BJP's Navya Haridas.
Rahul had won the hill constituency in the 2024 general elections with a victory margin of over 3.5 lakh votes and in 2019 he had achieved a margin of over 4.3 lakh votes. He had vacated the Wayanad LS seat after he also won the Rae Bareli constituency in the 2024 general election and therefore, necessitated a bypoll in the hill constituency.
Priyanka Gandhi said that if she was given a chance, she would fight for the people of Wayanad not only in the Parliament, but on every other platform.
