The Gandhi siblings have redrawn the map of Wayanad’s electoral politics. What was once a quiet Lok Sabha seat came into the national spotlight in 2019, when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi chose it as his second constituency, after Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
He won decisively, defeating P.P. Suneer of the Communist Party of India (CPI) by over 4.31 lakh votes, and securing the highest margins across all seven Assembly segments — Mananthavady, Sulthan Bathery, and Kalpetta in Wayanad district; Eranad, Nilambur, and Wandoor in Malappuram; and Thiruvambadi in Kozhikode.
Despite the Rahul wave of 2019, the CPI (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) managed to win three — Mananthavady, Thiruvambadi, and Nilambur — of the seven segments in the 2021 Assembly election.
Lower victory margins
In the remaining Assembly constituencies where the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) won, Mr. Gandhi’s leads had been reduced considerably, by several thousand votes.
In Kalpetta, Mr. Gandhi had held a lead of 63,754 votes in the Lok Sabha election, but Congress nominee T. Siddique’s victory margin in the Assembly election fell to 5,470. In Wandoor, Congress candidate A.P. Anilkumar’s margin was reduced to 15,563, where Mr. Gandhi had held an advantage of 69,555 votes. I.C. Balakrishnan’s victory margin in Sulthan Bathery was only 11,822, as against Mr. Gandhi’s lead of 70,465 votes.
Only in Eranad did the Indian Union Muslim League’s P.K. Basheer put up a notable performance, with a margin of 22,546 votes, compared with Mr. Gandhi’s lead of 56,527.
Regional focus
The 2021 Assembly results were heavily influenced by specific regional issues, such as welfare schemes and tribal development, which helped the LDF retain Mananthavady. However, the UDF capitalised on agrarian distress and the “Gandhi influence” to win Kalpetta and retain Sulthan Bathery. Candidate selection also contributed to the rout in Kalpetta. In addition, the buffer zone controversy and minority representation played key roles in the outcome.
The Nilambur Assembly segment presented an altogether different electoral picture, with Left-backed independent P.V. Anvar retaining the seat he had won in the 2016 polls. However, the Congress’s Aryadan Shoukath won the seat in a byelection last year after Mr. Anvar parted ways with the Left.
In his second innings from Wayanad, Mr. Gandhi won with a margin of over 3.64 lakh votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Later, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra retained the seat in a byelection, with a victory margin of more than four lakh votes. By surpassing her brother’s margin, she has now set a high bar for the LDF in the coming Assembly polls.
Landslide recovery impact
The UDF’s position is not as comfortable as those numbers suggest. The deaths by suicide of Congress leaders N.M. Vijayan and Jose Nelledam, compounded by corruption allegations in Congress-run cooperatives, have exposed fractures the party has struggled to contain. The LDF, meanwhile, has moved quickly on the ground, rolling out a rehabilitation package after the Wayanad landslides and building a new township for displaced residents.
Nevertheless, Ms. Vadra has worked to keep pace. She has visited Wayanad repeatedly and, through 2026, stayed closely engaged with the landslide recovery effort and local community meetings, building the kind of direct contact that numbers alone cannot manufacture.
This sense of physical insecurity has been aggravated by the restrictive night traffic bans on National Highway 766 and the Mananthavady- Bavali interstate route. Though framed as conservation measures within Karnataka’s forest boundaries, these closures have effectively choked the Wayanad district’s economic arteries, disrupting trade flows and complicating emergency transit. This isolation is further exacerbated by a critical deficit in medical infrastructure. The absence of a comprehensive tertiary healthcare system forces residents to undertake risky journeys to Kozhikode for life-saving treatment.
Amidst these challenges, a ray of hope has emerged with the State government’s commencement of the Anakkampoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi twin-tunnel project. This ₹2,134-crore flagship initiative, implemented by the Konkan Railway Corporation, aims to construct an 8.73 km underground road. Once complete, it will serve as a vital alternative to the congested Thamarassery Ghat road linking Kozhikode to Wayanad. For the electorate, such projects are not merely infrastructural upgrades but essential demands for equity—ensuring that the district’s ecological significance does not come at the cost of its people’s safety and development.
Wayanad has emerged as one of India’s most closely watched constituencies. Yet for all the national attention, the issues driving voters remain stubbornly local. Across all seven Assembly segments these concerns continue to cast a long shadow, one that no amount of political star power has yet managed to address.
Published – March 21, 2026 07:41 pm IST
