Will Priyanka Gandhi in Wayanad Help Congress' Prospects in 2026 Kerala Polls?

Congress pins hopes on Priyanka Gandhi to rejuvenate the party in Kerala, following in Rahul's footsteps.

Desperate to come back to power in the state after an unusually long wait, the 2026 Assembly poll will be crucial for the Congress. So, will the 'Priyanka factor' help the party?  

(Photo: Vibhushita Singh/The Quint)

Wayanad, the hilly constituency in Kerala that sent Rahul Gandhi to the Lok Sabha in 2019 and 2024 with huge margins, is gearing up for a by-election, with the senior Congress leader choosing to retain the Rae Bareli seat in Uttar Pradesh.

The national leadership has ensured that Rahul's exit from Wayanad does not cause any disappointment to the Congress in the state, for it is Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who will now contest from the seat.

To elaborate, the Congress in Kerala – which won 18 of the 20 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls – will have Priyanka as the leading force in not just the upcoming by-election but also the 2026 Assembly polls to defeat its bitter rival CPI(M) and the Left Democratic Front (LDF) it heads.   

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), despite winning 19 out of the 20 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, was crushed by the LDF in the subsequent Assembly elections of 2021, winning 99 seats out of 140. As the Left came back to power for a second term for the first time in Kerala's history, Pinarayi Vijayan became the chief minister yet again.   

With the UDF and the LDF sharing the political domain in Kerala as the two mighty political entities – leaving not much space for the aspiring BJP – each election is crucial for both fronts.  

Desperate to come back to power in the state after an unusually long wait, the 2026 Assembly poll will be crucial for the Congress. So, will the 'Priyanka factor' help the party?  

Congress Pins Its Hopes on Priyanka

The state leaders of the Congress are aware that the organisation is weak at the moment. Infighting is not uncommon and student and youth organisations are not as active as they used to be. Moreover, all is not well among the top leaders of the party.

At least 3-4 senior leaders of the Congress are vying for the chief minister's chair if the UDF wins the next Assembly elections.

Naturally, many in the Congress hope that the presence of a high-profile national leader like Priyanka – from the much-revered Nehru family – can build a new image for the Congress in the state.

After all, that was what happened in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The presence of Rahul in Wayanad – and the talk that he would be the next prime minister – did boost the Congress' functioning in the state.

The minority communities – Muslims making up 26 per cent of Kerala's population and Christians 19.5 per cent – rallied behind the Congress, as was evident in the election results. It was the 'Rahul wave' that helped the Congress sweep through the state in the 2019 Parliamentary polls.  

But the same voters that sent 19 UDF candidates to the Lok Sabha in 2019 thrashed the Congress in the 2021 Assembly elections. And that's how Kerala politics has been, to the worry of the Congress. The party knows that anything can happen in the 2026 Assembly elections as well, despite their having won 18 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

So, it is no wonder the Congress want to see Priyanka as their saviour. 

The Road Ahead for Priyanka

But unlike in Delhi, Priyanka will face a different political scenario in Kerala with the mighty CPI(M) pitted against the Congress, though both parties are allies in Parliament under the banner of the INDIA bloc.

Questions have already been raised over whether Priyanka is a candidate of the INDIA front or the Congress, though her candidature was announced by AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge.

As in the case of Rahul, Priyanka's fight in Wayanad will be against a CPI candidate – a Left party of the INDIA front – and of course, the BJP (though the party is not strong enough in the region). Whether the CPI would field Annie Raja, who battled it out against Rahul Gandhi, is yet to be seen.

But Priyanka's chances in Wayanad appear solid, thanks to her personality, high-profile political acumen, and storied family background. She knows politics – and she speaks politics. She has been at her best when facing heavy-weight BJP leaders like Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and is credited for the Congress' performance in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 elections.

From raising questions to raking up social and political issues like a seasoned politician, Priyanka would be a loud voice of the Opposition if Wayanad sends her to Parliament.   

Priyanka is also known to mingle with people easily and be one among them. This is something that would make her a different political persona in Wayanad.

The battleground in Kerala, however, may prove to be different for Priyanka. Rahul had learned some hard lessons at the very beginning of his campaign when he asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi's agencies would not arrest Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Pinarayi replied that neither he nor anyone in his party is afraid to go to jail, while also reminding Rahul that he had been imprisoned by his grandmother Indira Gandhi during the Emergency.

But unlike Rahul, Priyanka is much more cautious about her words and knows well who her adversaries are as well as how to attack them.

Both Rahul and Priyanka are the scions of a large, prominent political family in India, and naturally, politics has been thrust upon them. And now they must deliver.

While in Kerala, Priyanka has the potential to be a leader of the Congress party engaged in a raging war against the CPI(M), in Delhi, she could be a national leader engaging with INDIA front leaders like Sitaram Yechury, the general secretary of the CPI(M), and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav.

As a new-generation leader from the Nehru family, how Priyanka will drive her politics further and navigate coalitions is worth watching.  

(Jacob George is a prominent journalist and renowned television personality in Kerala. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)