Priyanka Gandhi won from Kerala's Wayanad with over 6.22 lakh votes in her maiden electoral contest. Communist Party of India's Sathyan Mokeri lost with over 2.11 lakh votes while the BJP's Navya Haridas managed to get 1.09 lakh votes.
Priyanka Gandhi has secured a margin of 4.1 lakh votes, breaking Rahul Gandhi's record of 3.65 lakh votes in the 2024 elections. This is despite a decline in voter turnout.
The voter turnout in the Wayanad bypoll was around 65 per cent, a decline from the close to 74 per cent in the Lok Sabha polls held in April this year and much lower than the over 80 per cent turnout in the hill constituency in the 2019 general elections.
The counting of votes for byelections began at 8 am. Over the past few weeks, bypolls were held on 48 assembly seats in 14 states - Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Elections were also held on two Lok Sabha seats - Kerala's Wayanad and Maharashtra's Nanded.
These elections marked the electoral debut of Congress' Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who contested from Wayanad, earlier held by her brother Rahul Gandhi. The election was necessitated in Wayanad after Rahul Gandhi won both Wayanad and Rae Bareli seats and decided to retain the latter.
Rahul Gandhi actively campaigned for his sister Priyanka Gandhi. In one of the election rallies, he said, “If she likes you, she will do whatever; beyond anything you can imagine. She is also going to like Wayanad a lot. You see, a huge part of being a good MP is that you like the people and place you work for. She is going to like it.”
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