Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi tasted victory in her debut election with a margin of 4,10,931 votes, which is higher than Rahul Gandhi’s margin of 3,64,422 votes in the previous Lok Sabha election, conducted in April-May 2024. She will now represent Wayanad in the Lok Sabha, a role played by her brother in the previous term. Priyanka garnered 6,22,338 votes, which is 25,117 votes less than Rahul’s total.
Wayanad, which elected Rahul to the Lok Sabha in the last two general elections, has been a safe seat for the Congress for a long time. When results were declared on June 4, incumbent MP Rahul secured the seat with 6,47,445 votes, that is, 59.69% of the vote share.
Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Sathyan Mokeri came second in the bye-poll with 2,11,407 votes. This is considerably lower than the 2,83,023 votes secured by CPI leader Annie Raja for the Left front in the general election held earlier this year. The LDF had put forth a good performance, with Annie increasing their vote share from 25.24% in 2019 to 26.09% in 2024.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Navya Haridas ended the bye-poll in third position, securing 1,09,939 votes. The NDA’s votes also dwindled in comparison to the previous election, in which state BJP president K Surendran garnered 1,41,045 votes for the alliance. Even though relegated to the third place, Surendran had managed to increase BJP’s vote share by 13%, compared to the 7.25% in 2019.
The election was necessitated after Rahul chose Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli over Wayanad after the double victory in the Lok Sabha election held earlier this year.