'Waiting for Wayanad polls to get over to contest on 2nd seat, Congress has accepted defeat': PM Modi on Rahul Gandhi

PM Narendra Modi has said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is looking for a second seat to contest as an alternative to Kerala’s Wayanad seat. (Source: X/Narendra Modi)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is waiting for the voting in Kerala’s Wayanad to get over, so that he may contest on a second seat.

Rahul is an MP from Kerala’s Wayanad. He had contested on two seats in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, with the other being his family bastion of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. In a major upset, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Smriti Irani had defeated him in Amethi, a seat he has retained since 2004.

In an interview with Asianet ahead of the second round 2024 Lok Sabha elections on April 26, Modi mocked Rahul as the “Crown Prince” of Congress and said that while Rahul first sought Wayanad as a second seat in 2019, now the situation is such that he will seek an alternative to even Wayanad.

“The Crown Prince of Congress fled the North to take refuge in the South. He reached Wayanad. This time, the condition is such that he is waiting. As soon as the polling in Wayanad is concluded, a second seat will be announced for him. He is looking for a second seat,” said Modi in Hindi.

Wayanad will go to polls along with all the Lok Sabha seats in Kerala in the second round of elections on April 26. Kerala has 20 seats. The first round of the seven-phase elections was held on April 19. The final round of voting will take place on June 1. The counting of votes will take place on June 4 and results are expected the same day.

Exuding confidence in his reelection bid, Modi said that he is assured of victory. He further said that Congress has already accepted the defeated. He said that the party’s tallest leaders have started going to the Rajya Sabha as they do not want to contest Lok Sabha elections.

“I had once announced in the Parliament that their [Congress party’s] top leaders will no longer contest Lok Sabha elections and they will go to the Rajya Sabha. One month after I said this, their tallest leaders had to leave Lok Sabha to go to Rajya Sabha. They have already accepted defeat,” said Modi in an apparent reference to former Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

Earlier this year, Sonia announced that she would not contest Lok Sabha elections and would go to Rajya Sabha instead. She had been MP from Rai Bareli in Uttar Pradesh from 2004. She was first elected as an MP in 1999 from UP’s Amethi seat, which she handed over to her son Rahul in 2004. Previously, Sonia’s mother-in-law Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India, had held the Rae Bareli seat, whereas her husband Rajiv Gandhi, also a former PM, had held Amethi.

In the Rajya Sabha elections this year, Sonia was elected to the Upper House of the Parliament unopposed from Rajasthan. In the Nehru-Gandhi family, she is the second leader after mother-in-law Indira to go to Rajya Sabha.