Rahul Gandhi gets rousing welcome in Wayanad

Wayanad(Kerala): Thousands of people, including UDF leaders and workers, turned up on Wednesday at Kalpetta here to welcome the incumbent MP Rahul Gandhi who arrived here to file his nomination papers for the coming Lok Sabha elections.

Accompanied by his sister Priyanka Gandhi, Rahul landed at around 10:45 am on a helicopter from Kannur. They were greeted by hundreds of party workers and supporters at the helipad at Muppainad, a village here.

From there he travelled by road to the new bus stand at Kalpetta, the starting point of his roadshow which began at 11:30 am.

While hundreds of UDF workers lined up for the roadshow, several people across all age groups carried party flags and placards with the Congress MP's photograph and balloons in the party colours and gathered on the roadsides to welcome him.

Standing atop an open truck, Rahul was flanked by Priyanka and senior party leaders from Kerala as the roadshow moved towards the Civil Station locality.

From his vehicle, the Congress MP waved to the thousands who thronged both sides of the road and shouted 'jai jai Rahul Gandhi' and 'down down Narendra Modi'.

Hundreds of party workers and supporters walked in front, alongside and at the rear of the vehicle.

Besides Priyanka, Rahul was accompanied by AICC general secretaries K C Venugopal and Deepa Das, AICC in-charge of the National Students' Union of India Kanhaiya Kumar, Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan and KPCC acting president M M Hassan.

Rahul will be contesting against BJP state president K Surendran and CPI leader Annie Raja from the Wayanad LS constituency. He had won from the same seat in 2019 with a massive margin of over four lakh votes.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi won after polling 7,06,367 votes out of a total of 10,92,197 with his closest rival -- CPI's P P Suneer -- receiving only 2,74,597 votes.

Voting in Kerala for the Lok Sabha polls this year will be on April 26.