Priyanka Gandhi Vadra takes oath, not a primary when 3 Nehru-Gandhis are in India’s Parliament

Congress normal secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Thursday took oath because the Lok Sabha member from Kerala’s Wayanad, the seat she gained with 6.22 lakh votes within the not too long ago held bypoll. This marks her official debut in electoral politics.

Donned in Kerala Kasavu saree, a typical Malayali festivities apparel that’s off-white in color and has golden border, Vadra held a duplicate of the Structure of India when she took the oath of workplace administered by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, with different lawmakers current within the Home.

Congress Basic Secretary Smt. @priyankagandhi ji takes the oath as a Member of Parliament from Wayanad.

📍New Delhi pic.twitter.com/lYqSLYbXSz

— Congress (@INCIndia) November 28, 2024

Later, Congress shared a put up on X, the place Priyanka, Rahul and Sonia Gandhi had been captured in the identical body, posing collectively and the caption learn, “In service of the nation.”

देश की सेवा में..

जय हिंद 🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/KxsOcPBokN

— Congress (@INCIndia) November 28, 2024

With Vadra’s entry within the Lok Sabha, India’s Parliament now has three members of the Nehru-Gandhi household. Her brother Rahul Gandhi is within the Lok Sabha, a parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi constituency. Their mom Sonia Gandhi is a Rajya Sabha member after she vacated the Raebareli constituency final yr.

Nevertheless, this isn’t the primary time that the Nehru-Gandhi household has fashioned such a mix in Parliament. Again in 2014, 4 members of the Nehru-Gandhi household had been elected Members of Parliament. Sonia Gandhi represented Rae Bareli seat, Rahul Gandhi Amethi, Maneka Gandhi Piliphit and Varun Gandhi Sultanpur — all Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.

Whereas Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are prime leaders of the Congress, the principal Opposition occasion in Parliament, Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi are members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP).

The Nehru-Gandhi household has a protracted historical past of electoral illustration in India’s Parliament, with Jawaharlal Nehru turning into the primary prime minister of the nation after Independence. He contested elections from Phulpur constituency in Uttar Pradesh. His daughter Indira Gandhi — married to Feroze Gandhi, a parliamentarian throughout 1952-60 — contested from totally different constituencies together with Rae Bareli. She additionally grew to become the prime minister of India — the one girl until date to occupy the put up.

Indira Gandhi’s sons Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi had been each parliamentarians. Sanjay Gandhi was the primary to enter the political fray and wielded huge affect through the mid-Seventies, when he’s mentioned to have performed the decisive function in getting Indira Gandhi impose nationwide emergency in India — the choice subsequently noticed large violation of elementary rights of the residents.

Sanjay Gandhi died in a airplane crash in 1980, resulting in the political debut of his elder brother Rajiv Gandhi first and later his spouse Maneka Gandhi, who drifted away from the Congress.

Years after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, Sonia Gandhi contested Lok Sabha election and led the Congress occasion from in direction of the tip of the Nineties to mid-2010s earlier than handing over the reins to her son Rahul Gandhi, who made electoral debut in 2004.

Varun Gandhi, the son of Maneka and Sanjay Gandhi, contested his first parliamentary election in 2009 from Pilibhit Lok Sabha. He was denied a ticket by the BJP on this yr’s Lok Sabha election.

Now, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has entered the Lok Sabha, defeating Sathyan Mokeri of the Communist Occasion of India (CPI) by a margin of 4,10,931 votes to win the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, beforehand held by Rahul Gandhi.

Wayanad has been a stronghold of the Congress. Rahul Gandhi gained this seat in 2019, when he misplaced the household pocket borough to the BJP’s Smriti Irani. He gained again the seat in 2024, defeating Irani.

The election in Wayanad featured a three-way contest between the Congress’s Vadra, CPI’s Sathyan Mokeri and BJP’s Navya Haridas.

Vadra entered energetic politics in 2019, having managed Amethi and Raebareli constituencies for her brother and mom respectively for over a decade. She was made the Congress normal secretary in 2019 as co-incharge of Uttar Pradesh.