'Game on': Kerala gets ready for 3 by-elections, Priyanka Gandhi prepares for poll debut

Decks have been cleared for bypolls to two Assembly seats and the high-profile Wayanad constituency in Kerala with the Election Commission on Tuesday announcing the dates for the two-phase by-elections to 48 Assembly seats and 2 Lok Sabha seats in 15 states.

The bypolls in Kerala will be held on November 13 and votes will be counted on November 23.

As soon as the dates were announced, leaders of the state's three political fronts on expected lines expressed confidence that they would emerge as the winner and also said the list of candidates would be out anytime.

The Assembly by-elections at Palakkad and Chelakkara were necessitated after sitting legislators Shafi Paramabil (Congress) and K. Radhakrishnan (CPI-M), respectively, vacated the seats after winning the Lok Sabha polls. Meanwhile, the Wayanad parliamentary constituency fell vacant as the winner, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, chose to retain the traditional family borough of Rai Bareli in Uttar Pradesh, from where he was also elected. The Congress subsequently announced his sister and party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi as its candidate in what will be her poll debut.

The focus is all set to be on Wayanad, which Rahul Gandhi won by a decreased amount as compared to his over 4.60 lakh margin in 2019. Though the victory of Priyanka Gandhi seems certain, the only thing that remains to be seen is if she will better her brother's margin.

UDF convenor M.M. Hassan said the Congress, which will contest all the seats, will win 3-0 and at Chelakkara, there will be a big surprise. "In Kerala, it’s now a triangular contest and we all know what happened at the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat (where BJP candidate Suresh Gopi won) as it was an election that was fixed between the BJP and CPI-M and that’s what happened," he said.

For the ruling Left, the two Assembly by-elections will be contested by the alliance major, CPI-M, while the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat goes to the CPI.

For the Pinarayi Vijayan government, presently caught in a bind over a string of controversies, failure to retain the Chelakkara Assembly seat will hang heavy. What has put the CPI-M in a spot of bother is that Chelakkara is a reserved constituency and they are burning the midnight oil to find the most suitable replacement for Radhakrishnan.

Newly-appointed Left Democratic Front convenor T.P. Ramakrishnan, however, dismissed the present wave of criticism against the state government by pointing out that in 2021, a similar situation prevailed and when votes were counted, "we won a stellar victory by becoming the first to retain office".

Meanwhile, the BJP has high hopes in Palakkad, where in the 2021 Assembly polls, their candidate 'Metroman' E.Sreedharan gave a fright to Parambil before losing by less than 4,000 votes.

State BJP President K.Surendran said ever since the April 26 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP is on a high and it will now be seen in the three by-elections.

"The list of candidates from the state has been sent to the national party and very soon, the names will be announced. We wish to make it very clear that we will continue our winning streak and come out successful in the two Assembly by-elections and at Wayanad, we will be putting up a stiff fight," he said.