Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Wayanad candidate K Surendran has said that his rival Rahul Gandhi will face the ‘same fate’ during Lok Sabha elections 2024 in the seat in Kerala as he met in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi in the 2019 general elections.
Surendran, the Kerala state president of the BJP, is contesting against the Congress leader and incumbent member of parliament (MP) from Wayanad in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 26. Surendran found his name for Wayanad in the fifth list of candidates released by the BJP on March 24.
In 2019, Rahul Gandhi won the Wayanad constituency, defeating CPI’s PP Suneer with a margin of over 4.31 lakh votes. An ally of the BJP, Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) had fielded its chief Thushar Vellappally from Wayanad. Vellapally could get only 78,816 votes.
“Wayanad is a constituency where there is a development crisis. Rahul Gandhi has done nothing for the constituency. He will meet the same fate in Wayanad as he encountered in Amethi last time,” Surendran said on March 25.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Rahul Gandhi also contested from the then-Congress stronghold Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. But he lost the seat to BJP leader Smriti Irani. While the Congress party announced Rahul Gandhi as its candidate from Wayanad, it has yet to nominate its candidate for Amethi.
“The people of Wayanad will definitely ask why the senior leaders of the INDIA alliance are contesting against each other in the same constituency,” Surendran said. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) has fielded senior Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja from Wayanad.
“We are much ahead in the campaigning. We have reached out to all sections of society. The response of the voters boosts our confidence,” Raja said.
(With PTI inputs)
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Published: 26 Mar 2024, 07:53 AM IST