Spotlight on Priyanka Gandhi's 'convenient' electoral debut from Wayanad

New Delhi: With the Election Commission (EC) announcing the bypoll to the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, the stage is set for Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's electoral debut from the Kerala constituency that could see her enter Parliament five years after joining active politics.

Soon after the EC announced the Wayanad bypoll, the Congress declared that Priyanka Gandhi (52) would be its candidate from the seat in Kerala.

With the Congress fielding the AICC general secretary from Wayanad, party workers put up posters in the constituency which had "Wayanadinte Priyankari (Wayanad's beloved)" written on it.

Days after the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress had announced in June itself that Rahul Gandhi will retain the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh and vacate the Wayanad seat in Kerala, from where his sister Priyanka Gandhi will make her electoral debut.

If elected, this will be the first time that Priyanka Gandhi will enter Parliament as an MP. This will also be the first time that the three Gandhi family members -- Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka -- will be in Parliament together.

The EC on Tuesday announced bypolls to the Wayanad and Nanded Lok Sabha seats as well as in 48 Assembly constituencies.

The bypoll to the Wayanad parliamentary seat and 47 Assembly seats will be held on November 13, along with the first phase of polling for the Jharkhand Assembly.

Since her entry into active politics in 2019, Priyanka Gandhi has often been projected as a possible challenger to Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi and also, as a successor to Congress veteran Sonia Gandhi in the family pocket borough of Rae Bareli.

However, the Congress has decided to field her from Wayanad, the parliamentary seat that her elder brother Rahul won for two consecutive elections. Priyanka Gandhi was earlier the Congress in-charge of Uttar Pradesh.

She emerged as the party's strategist and star campaigner, helping the Congress make impressive gains in some states as well as in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier in the year.

After her name was announced for the Wayanad bypoll in June, Priyanka Gandhi had said, "I am not nervous at all.... I am very happy to be able to represent Wayanad. All I will say is that I will not let them feel his (Rahul Gandhi's) absence. I will work hard and try my best to make everybody happy and be a good representative." "I have a good relationship with Rae Bareli as I worked there for 20 years and that relationship will never break," she had said, adding that both she and her brother will work together in both the constituencies.

After she made the political plunge, Priyanka Gandhi was made the Congress general secretary in-charge of the crucial eastern Uttar Pradesh region in January 2019 and then as the general secretary in-charge of the entire state.

Though the performance of her party in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls was not very good, she continued with her efforts to strengthen the organisation at the grassroots level.

In December 2023, Priyanka Gandhi was made a Congress general secretary "without a portfolio". She emerged as the party's key strategist and later, its star campaigner for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

She also helped strengthen the organisation and led the party's campaign in Himachal Pradesh, where the grand old party wrested power from the BJP. Her campaign helped the Congress in the general election, in which the party got 99 seats, up from 52 in 2019.

Priyanka Gandhi is married to businessman Robert Vadra.

With the Congress putting up a surprisingly good show in the Lok Sabha polls, Priyanka Gandhi cemented her position as the party's talisman.

Countering Modi over his "gold and mangalsutra" remarks during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, an emotionally-charged Priyanka Gandhi had reminded the voters that her mother, Sonia Gandhi, had sacrificed her mangalsutra for the country.

The Congress general secretary did not take the electoral plunge at that time but opted to contest the Wayanad bypoll after guiding her party to a stronger position in Parliament, compared to its tally of seats in 2014 and 2019.

Often referring to her childhood, the pain of her father Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and her mother's grief, she had steered the Congress' campaign during the general election, adroitly walking the tightrope between striking a familial chord and discussing national-level issues. She proved to be a strategist, orator and mass mobiliser -- all rolled into one.

As the curtains came down on the 2024 general election, analysts totted up the numbers.

Priyanka Gandhi took part in 108 public meetings and roadshows. She campaigned in 16 states and a Union territory, and also addressed two party workers' conferences in Amethi and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.

Most of her speeches were akin to a conversation with the crowd, establishing a connect and giving people the impression that here was a person who was known to them, someone sharing her feelings and thoughts with them.

She had also accompanied Rahul Gandhi to Wayanad following the devastating landslides in the region in July and has been involved in the relief-and-rescue work launched by the party.

Priyanka Gandhi's poll debut comes at a time when the Congress has been jolted by an electoral defeat in Haryana and it would be interesting to see if she would be able to steer the Wayanad campaign, along with the canvassing for the Jharkhand and Maharashtra polls, to put the grand old party back on track.