Rahul Gandhi set for landslide victory in Raebareli, leading in Wayanad

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set to secure a landslide victory from the Raebareli seat as Lok Sabha votes are counted on Tuesday.

He has already surpassed his mother Sonia Gandhi’s 2019 victory margin and currently leads by 380,929 votes. Data from the Election Commission at 3:47 pm also indicates that Gandhi is set to retain his Wayanad seat in Kerala, where he is leading with 354,728 votes against Annie Raja of CPI.

Rahul Gandhi is winning decisively from both his constituencies. In Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh, he enjoys a significant lead against Dinesh Pratap Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to the Election Commission of India (ECI) figures, Gandhi was leading Singh by more than 220,000 votes on Tuesday afternoon, hours after the counting began at 8 am.

In the 2019 general elections, Raebareli was the only seat that the Congress won in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state that sends 80 members to the 543-seat Lok Sabha.This time the grand old party is already leading on 7 seats.

 Sonia Gandhi, a former president of the Congress, had won four general elections and a by-election in Raebareli. Rahul Gandhi, who held the neighboring Amethi constituency for three consecutive terms before being defeated by the BJP’s Smriti Irani in 2019, was nominated from Raebareli after Sonia Gandhi vacated the seat and moved to the Rajya Sabha in February due to health concerns.

Rahul Gandhi’s impending wins from both his seats mean he will have to vacate one, triggering a by-election. This could pave the way for his sister, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, to make her electoral debut in the subsequent by-poll.

Sonia Gandhi had won Raebareli by a margin of 167,178 votes against Dinesh Pratap Singh in 2019. This year, Rahul Gandhi contested the Congress bastion for the first time against Singh, currently a cabinet minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.