Rahul Gandhi To Not Contest From Wayanad? Here's What Congress Ally CPI Plans For The Lok Sabha Seat

As INDI Alliance is on the verge of finalising seat-sharing deals in various states, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi might have to leave his Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala for his ally Communist Party of India (CPI).

As per the seat-sharing arrangement, CPI has been allocated four of the 20 seats from Kerala. While it has not been detailed which four seats these will be, CPI General Secretary D Raja did not reject the possibility of Wayanad being one of them.

As per The Economic Times, there are speculations that D Raja's wife and the national mahila samakhya general secretary of CPI, Annie Raja might contest from here if Wayanad falls under CPI's quota.

Notably, Rahul Gandhi had contested at two places in the 2019 elections. While he lost in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi against BJP's Smriti Irani, he won at Wayanad by a margin of over 4 lakh votes with the CPI candidate being the runner-up.

It is pertinent to mention that the Congress has been winning this seat since 2009 (after the seat was formed in the 2008 delimitation) and the CPI has remained a runner-up. Hence, it is unlikely that the party will give away this seat.

Currently, the CPI is the part of Left Democratic Front (LDF) which leads the government in Kerala. While at the state level, Congress and CPI oppose each other, they are together within the INDI Alliance.

CPI's three-member committee consisting of D Raja, K Narayana, and Ramakrushna Panda is negotiating seat-sharing with Congress. Their focus is on preventing the expansion of the BJP in Kerala.