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When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
On October 23, 2024, Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's speech from Wayanad, where she was to file her nomination papers, felt both routine and surreal.
Routine because the state's Congress unit getting excited over visits by the Gandhi family was a drama repeated umpteen times in Kerala.
For the Kerala unit of the Congress party, 'high command' signifying the Gandhi family and associated party higher-ups, has always been a coveted magnet to cozy up to.
It is the Congress equivalent of the political Left's politburo and 'Pinariyist' (a popular term in the state denoting die-hard loyalty to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan) and the Bharatiya Janata Party's hallowed combine of Prime Minister Narendra D Modi and Home Minister Amit A Shah.
Priyanka's speech felt surreal because against the backdrop of a constituency facing some serious issues, here was yet another politician parachuted into place and expected to win on the strength of celebrity quotient.
Priyanka's debut as a candidate in Wayanad is different from her brother Rahul's.
In 2019, when Rahul Gandhi first contested from Wayanad, it was a case of seeking a safe constituency.
The seat he had represented from the 2004 Lok Sabha polls onward, Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, received a new competitor in the form of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Smriti Irani.
It made Rahul's survival there dicey. His arrival in Wayanad, from where too he decided to contest to hedge his risk, generated much curiosity and thrill.
At that time, the floods of 2018, which devastated parts of Kerala and stood identified with the ongoing global phenomenon of climate change, were less than a year old.
Wayanad had many unique issues ranging from the desire to develop infrastructure to human-animal conflict plaguing high range agriculture, all of this amidst a wider emergent concern in Kerala over how to develop its hills following clear signs of extreme weather patterns playing out in the geography.
However, in the 2019 elections, much of these issues appeared brushed aside in the euphoria of a Gandhi family member standing for elections in Wayanad.
As predicted from the start, Rahul was elected by a fantastic victory margin; on the day of results, the margin was in excess of four lakh votes.
Same time, he lost in Amethi thus evidencing the merit in having contested from Wayanad.
The Congress leader's tenure as the MP from Wayanad was disrupted in March 2023 when he was disqualified from the Lok Sabha after he was convicted in a defamation case.
In August that year, the conviction was stayed by the Supreme Court.
On the bright side, it was during his days of association with Wayanad that Rahul, as the politician he is today, was shaped.
There was the lengthy battle against the BJP ever trying to silence him, there was the Bharat Jodo Yatra and eventually his rise through the successful return of the political Opposition in the 2024 general elections, to his being currently, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Wayanad stood by him through all this. Its proof being his successful re-election from the constituency, in the general elections of 2024.
This time, with stronger opponents in the fray, slight fatigue in the original excitement of a Gandhi family member contesting from Wayanad and the fact that he was contesting from both Wayanad and Rae Bareli -- not to mention, the issues Wayanad had been facing, continued notwithstanding the development works done by Rahul -- his victory margin dropped below four lakh votes.
Given he won from both Rae Bareli and Wayand and had to surrender one of the seats, Rahul chose to give up the latter leading thereby to the current by-election featuring his sister, Priyanka, as a candidate.
In some quarters of Kerala, there is an underlying scepticism about the Gandhis and their tryst with Wayanad.
That Rahul won from Wayanad and gave it up in 2024 despite the constituency sharing the angst over his disqualification from Parliament, is there in public memory.
As are two other points. First, Priyanka used to be the Congress general secretary overseeing the party in Uttar Pradesh (from September 2020 to December 2023), which raises the same question once asked about Rahul of why the siblings are contesting elections from safe constituencies in Kerala.
That Rahul hedged his risks in Amethi with a second base in Wayanad and that under Priyanka's watch, the Congress won only two seats in the last UP assembly elections, don't help.
Second, people haven't quite understood why there is an urgency to see Priyanka in Parliament.
These questions have lent the Gandhi family's presence in Wayanad, the hue of a periodic caravan in town.
Something that comes and goes with fanfare; not something permanent.
The BJP and the political Left have been quick to cash in on this angle.
What makes the apparent impermanence concerning in the November 2024 by-election is that as a constituency, Wayanad is not what it was in the April 2024 general elections when Rahul Gandhi won for a second time from there.
On July 30, 2024, following heavy rains, a series of landslides had hit Punjirimattom, Vellarimala, Chooralmala and Mundakkai villages in Meppadi panchayat in Wayanad, claiming more than 400 lives (source: Wikipedia) with several still missing.
"This incident ranks among the worst tragedies in India. It isn't just the number of people who died or whose lives were dislocated; the incident has an impact on future generations," noted author Kalpetta Narayanan said.
The relocation and rehabilitation of those affected by the landslides have since become a major bone of contention between Kerala and the BJP led-central government with the former seeking central assistance and the latter, in what is widely seen as an oblique way of shaming the state for its weak finances, suggesting that Kerala dip into its state disaster relief funds to finance the rehabilitation.
Narayanan is among those who believe that Wayanad's tragedy of July 2024 and its aftermath haven't received the kind of attention it merits.
Now, there are those who argue that elections to Parliament should be fought on national issues and not local ones.
In Wayanad, this is indeed what happened in the 2019 general elections.
When Rahul approached the electorate as a candidate, the people looked beyond Wayanad towards a national scenario threatened by Hindutva and the BJP's rise, and voted accordingly.
Similarly, Narayanan thinks that Wayanad's landslides are a national tragedy further contextualised by larger global issues like climate change.
He believes that Wayanad's present juncture requires representation by someone who will provide voice to the region's troubles and get them heard.
He emphasised that he isn't a blind supporter of any political party.
Still, notwithstanding the fact that the by-election would be Priyanka's first ever election, he felt that she may be able to represent Wayanad's needs because the region's challenges have outgrown the proportion of merely banking on local representatives or the traditional wisdom of viewing elections to Parliament differently from elections to the state assembly.
In the eyes of some others, a potential spoiler herein was how convincingly the Congress was able to communicate to the electorate all that happened following Rahul's election in 2019 (like his disqualification), how the party values Wayanad in the context of the continued support the electorate gave and how it explains why Rahul decided to keep Rae Bareli and give up Wayanad in 2024.
If Wayanad feels letdown by how the Gandhis treated it in the past, then continued goodwill may dilute commensurately.
On October 23, a small galaxy of Congress leaders had assembled in Kalpetta to witness and support Priyanka's electoral debut.
Reports in the next day's newspapers cited Rahul promising that Wayanad would have an official representative in Priyanka and an unofficial one in himself.
Rahul's heft matters because the electorate knows how he has changed over the years and how much that may have contributed to the opposition's return in the 2024 parliament elections.
In her speech from Wayanad on the day of filing her nomination papers, Priyanka, 52, told the audience, 'It is my honour to represent you, if you give me a chance.'
She said her family remained grateful for the support Wayanad gave her brother and promised to stand by the electorate through thick and thin.
She said that Rahul had apprised her of the challenges Wayanad faced, ranging from road connectivity to hospitals.
'For me, each one of you is a symbol of my responsibility to you,' she said.
Priyanka made sure to highlight India's secular values, the love and brotherhood resident in various religions and how that fabric of tolerance was being torn asunder by the BJP.
Her speech, seeking an emotional connect and showcasing the Congress's call for amity may have impressed a sizable section of Wayanad's electorate, which wishes for secularism and relief from the Hindutva-laden politics of the BJP.
In its parliamentary constituency form, Wayanad packs in a large number of Muslim voters.
Political observers in Kerala know that this vote bank, anchored by the Indian Union Muslim League, which is a member of the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala, has always played a pivotal role in making Wayanad safe for high profile Congress candidates.
Two elections won by Rahul so and with Wayanad's old and new challenges still to address, electoral math alone as avenue to succeed is impressing less and less people; certainly, it isn't impressing some Keralites in the state watching Wayanad from far.
Prima facie a good, efficient MP for Wayanad has become important against the backdrop of its problems. Someone who can get things done.
Can the Congress's strategy of parachuting the Gandhi family to Wayanad or the determination of the Left Democratic Front and the BJP to simply counter the move, satisfy what Wayanad seeks?
That parachute element has begun getting picked on by Priyanka's opponents.
A seasoned and respected politician, the Communist Party of India's Sathyan Mokeri represented the Nadapuram assembly constituency for a long time (in the 2024 general elections, the CPI candidate from Wayanad was senior party leader, Annie Raja).
At 71 years, he is the oldest of the main three candidates contesting the 2024 Wayanad by-election.
P Sandosh Kumar, senior CPI leader and Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala, who is overseeing Mokeri's campaign, said his party's approach to the Wayanad by-election was based on a few points.
First, the political Left saw the by-election as a forced one triggered by Rahul Gandhi's resignation from the Wayanad seat.
Replacing Rahul with Priyanka was equivalent to admitting that the Congress lacked suitable political talent locally.
It also smacked of wishing to keep things within the Gandhi family, which Sandosh argued, wasn't what was expected from a party committed to democracy.
He felt it was improper that INDIA bloc parties like the Congress and the CPI should compete mutually.
"In 2019, there was no INDIA bloc. When the 2024 general elections came and there was an INDIA bloc in place, the Congress's explanation was that the sitting MP should be allowed to defend his seat. But for the by-election, there is no sitting MP as Rahul Gandhi resigned his seat," Sandosh Kumar said.
When the Congress and the Left compete against each other, the anti-BJP vote gets split.
"Wasn't the need to listen to one's partners, one of the lessons for the Congress from the Haryana assembly elections?" he asked.
Sandosh Kumar wished there had been greater coordination within the INDIA bloc instead of precipitating situations wherein the Congress appears more anti-Left than anti-BJP.
"In the last few years, Wayanad has lacked a proper MP. For the Congress, it is still a transit constituency," he said.
As for the July landslides, Sandosh said the LDF had done its best to help despite the state's financial challenges.
At 39, the BJP's Navya Haridas, a councilor in the Kozhikode Municipal Corporation, is the youngest of the main three contestants (the BJP's Wayanad candidate in the 2024 general election was its state unit president, K Surendran).
Speaking about her campaign, the software engineer highlighted the need to uplift Wayanad's tribal community and bring in more development projects to the region without harming the environment.
A super specialty hospital for Wayanad was on her agenda too.
Referring to funding options for infrastructure already available under various central schemes and the people's need for a channel between them and the authorities, she said, "I was wondering what the elected MP was doing for the last five years."
She spoke of addressing farmers' issues and managing human-animal conflict in a balanced manner that didn't hurt either side.
Tourism would be allowed to develop without causing ecological damage.
Navya said that Wayand needed a representative who spoke the people's language.
Asked about the landslides of July, Navya said she saw the tragedy as a "man-made" disaster; the consequence of inapt development models and warnings ignored.
Pointing to the new army-built Bailey bridge, which restored road connectivity to the landslide-hit spots, she said, "People know that a major share of the rescue work came from the central government."
After speaking to the three competing sides, one got the impression that only the Congress (it isn't in power in Kerala or at the Centre) could afford to see July's landslides and its aftermath without anything to defend.
As the ruling front in the state, the LDF was protective of its contribution to rescue and rehabilitation; as the ruler in Delhi, the BJP saw the Centre's intervention as paramount.
"The tragedy of July is an issue in the by-election. Usually when a disaster of this scale happens, the Centre helps financially. That hasn't happened," A P Anil Kumar, the MLA from Wandoor and general convenor of the Congress's central election committee, said.
To their credit, the Gandhi siblings stayed in touch with Wayanad's tragedy.
In August, 2024, Priyanka had accompanied her brother to Chooralmala, among areas hit by landslides.
On October 24, media reports said that soon after filing her nomination papers, she and Rahul paid their respects at Puthumala, where some of those who died in the landslides of July have been laid to rest.
Still, when it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed, is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town.
If she wins, commitment to her constituency will be expected from Priyanka.
"As a top Congress functionary, Rahul may be pulled here and there, away from Wayanad. People think Priyanka will stay. Further, this is her first election and she has the need to prove herself," a prominent commentator on politics I spoke to, said.
Within days of Priyanka filing her nomination papers, the BJP was in attack mode claiming that she hadn't made a full disclosure of information pertaining to her and her husband's assets.
Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com