After former Congress president Rahul Gandhi filed his nomination from Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli, his opponent in Kerala’s Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, CPI candidate, Annie Raja, said that it is an “injustice to voters” of Wayanad.

Annie Raja said that it is about political morality and by not informing the Wayanad voters of his intention, Gandhi was being “unjust” to them.

“In a parliamentary democracy, an individual can contest from more than one seat so he is using that democratic right. Now his filing nomination from Raebareli is an injustice to the voters of Wayanad. It is unjust to the voters because he never mentioned even once that he intends to contest another seat simultaneously. It is about political morality,” the CPI leader told ANI on Friday.

“It is important that you speak truth to the voters and then they will decide whom to vote for,” she added.

She further said that Gandhi contesting from Raebareli and not from Amethi is not any “political issue” nor does it “make any difference in a democratic setup”.

“This is a democratic setup and no constituency is permanent for any candidate. We are in this for five years and then the next election will be announced. So you can fight from anywhere,” Annie Raja said.

“Also about him not fighting from Amethi and contesting from Raebareli, all this depends on the party and the individual. That’s not any political issue. It does not make any difference in a democratic setup. Here he has done injustice to the voters of Wayanad by not telling them,” she added.

Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Shashi Tharoor, and actor-turned-politician Arun Govil are among the key candidates in the fray for the second phase of the Lok Sabha polls with Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hema Malini, Om Birla and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat seeking a hat-trick of wins from their respective constituencies.

Staggered over seven stages, the first phase of the elections held last Friday for 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories saw a voter turnout of around 65.5 per cent.

In the second phase of Lok Sabha polls on Friday, polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, seven in Madhya Pradesh, five each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.

Gandhi is the sitting MP from Wayanad in Kerala and is seeking re-election. He is pitted against CPI’s Annie Raja and BJP’s K Surendran.

In the 2019 election, Gandhi secured victory by a substantial margin of more than 7 lakh votes against his closest rival, Communist Party of India’s P P Suneer.

Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor is hoping to retain the Thiruvananthapuram seat for the fourth time. He is pitted against Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar from the BJP and CPI’s Pannyan Raveendran.

Malini, who has represented the Mathura constituency since 2014, is contesting against Congress’ Mukesh Dhangar while Om Birla, a two-time MP from Kota, is facing Prahlad Gunjal from the Congress party.

Union minister Shekhawat is eyeing a third win from the Jodhpur seat while Congress candidate Karan Singh Uchiyarda would look to put a spanner in the works of the BJP candidate.

Thousands of people, including UDF leaders and workers, turned up at Kalpetta in Wayanad to welcome the incumbent MP Rahul Gandhi who arrived 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 in the area.

Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by his sister Priyanka Gandhi and other senior party leaders including AICC general secretary KC Venugopal, submitted his nomination papers to the Wayanad District Collector who is also the Returning Officer.

After submitting the papers, he read out the oath to uphold the Constitution which concluded the submission process.

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.

Rahul Gandhi 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.