Congress MP Rahul Gandhi will contest against Kerala BJP chief K Surendran in the high-profile Wayanad constituency in the upcoming Lok Sabha election. Wayanad, historically a stronghold for Congress, has been under the party's control since 2009. Gandhi won the seat in 2019 and retained his Lok Sabha membership, after losing his Amethi seat to Union Minister Smriti Irani.
His opponent this time, Surendran, faces the formidable task of challenging the dominance of the Congress-Left alliance in Kerala's political landscape. Despite being part of a national alliance, Congress and Left parties remain competitors in this southern state.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Surendran secured the third position in the Pathanamthitta constituency, trailing behind the Congress and the Left parties. He had previously contested in the 2016 assembly polls from Manjeswaram, where he lost by a narrow margin of 89 votes. Despite his efforts, he also faced defeat in a 2019 bypoll.
Appointed as the head of the BJP Kerala unit in 2020, Surendran emerged as a prominent figure leading protests against the entry of young women into the Sabarimala temple.
Hailing from Kozhikode, Surendran was included in the BJP's fifth candidates' list, which also featured actor Kangana Ranaut and former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
Wayanad is the second Kerala seat to host a battle of the titans, following Thiruvananthapuram, where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will face three-time Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Meanwhile, the BJP has nominated former vice-chancellor of Sree Sankara Sanskrit University, K S Radhakrishnan, to contest from Ernakulam, and actor-turned-politician G Krishnakumar from Kollam. T N Sarasu, a former educator, will represent the party in Alathur, Palakkad.
The BJP's fifth candidate list gained attention with the electoral debut of actor Kangana Ranaut, who will contest from Mandi in her home state of Himachal Pradesh. The list, featuring 111 candidates across 17 states, also includes new entrants like industrialist Naveen Jindal and Gangopadhyay.