Wayanad, April 4: Congress President Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by his sister Priyanka Gandhi, on Thursday filed his nomination papers from Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala. Rahul Gandhi, for the first time, will contest Lok Sabha election from two seats. Apart from Wayanad, Rahul will also seek his third straight term from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, a Congress bastion.

In Wayanad, which is a safe seat of Congress, Rahul Gandhi will face a challenge from the Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate PP Suneer and Thushar Vellappally, president of BJP-ally Bharat Dharma Jana Sena. In the last two Lok Sabha elections, M I Shanawaz of the Congress won the seat, defeating the CPI candidate. Rahul Gandhi to Contest From Wayanad: Furious CPM Vows to Defeat Congress President in Lok Sabha Election 2019.

The Wayanad parliamentary seat is vacant after the demise of Shanawaz. In 2009 polls, C Vasudevan Master of the BJP got 31,687 votes which was a mere 3.85 per cent of the votes polled. He came a distant fourth in the contest. K Muraleedharan of the Nationalist Congress Party did better than the BJP candidate, coming third with 99,663 votes (12.10 per cent). Rahul Gandhi Promises to 'Scrap NITI Aayog', Reinstitute Planning Commission if Congress Voted to Power.

Compared to 2009, Shanawaz had a tough time winning the seat in 2014, scraping through with a little more than 20,000 votes over the second-placed CPI candidate to become one of the 44 Congress MPs in the last Lok Sabha. In 2014, Shanawaz got 377,035 votes or 30.18 per cent of the votes polled compared to CPI's Sathyan Mokeri who got 356,165 votes or 28.51 per cent.

However, that election saw the BJP placed third with its candidate PR Rasmilnath bagging 80,752 votes (6.46 per cent). Kerala will go to the polls on April 23 to elect 20 Lok Sabha candidates. Gandhi, who has been representing Amethi, won the seat by a reduced margin in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls by defeating Union Minister Smriti Irani and she is challenging him again in the constituency.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 04, 2019 11:43 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).