NEW DELHI: Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was cruising towards her maiden electoral win from Wayanad in Kerala, as she surpassed the lead achieved by her brother Rahul Gandhi in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls conducted earlier this year.
Priyanka Gandhi was leading by 410, 931 votes, with 64.9 per cent vote share after eight hours of counting of votes.
Rahul Gandhi had won the Wayanad seat on June 6 this year with a margin of 364,422 votes with a 59.7 per cent vote share. In 2019, Rahul had won by a margin of 4,31,770 votes and had got 39.5 per cent vote share.
According to the latest EC figures, Priyanka had got 622,338 votes as against Communist Party of India’s Sathyan Mokeri, who got 211,407 votes and NDA’s Navya Haridas, who got 109,939 votes.
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the trust you have placed in me. I will make sure that over time, you truly feel this victory has been your victory and the person you chose to represent you understands your hopes and dreams and fights for you as one of your own. I look forward to being your voice in Parliament,” Priyanka Gandhi wrote on X.
Priyanka’s husband, Robert Vadra, told reporters in Delhi that his wife was breaking all records and the trends show the love and affection she has received from the people of Wayanad
“We are very very thankful to the people of Wayanad for electing her as their representative in the Parliament. I think they (people of Wayanad) made the right decision because she will fight for them and all the issues in Wayanad,” said Vadra. “Whenever she is committed to something, she puts her heart and soul into it and you will be seeing a lot more of her in Wayanad and if required, I will also be there.”
Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy was the first Congress leader on Saturday who said, “Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would surely win by record margins.”
“An amazing first trend on counting day is the massive early lead for our leader @priyankagandhi ji in Wayanad, Kerala, by-election. People of Wayanad are surely going to record victory margins today and Priyanka ji will make Parliamentary debut with a grand win,” Reddy said in a post on ‘X’.
Early in the day, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) supremo Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal predicted that Priyanka will get more votes than what Rahul got and the majority she achieves would also be higher than that of her brother.
A similar view was expressed by IUML’s national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty.
Agencies