THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people lined up on either side of the streets in Wayanad to welcome Rahul Gandhi, the former member of parliament who was disqualified from the Lok Sabha last month after being found guilty in a criminal defamation case from 2019. This is Gandhi's first visit to the city since his disqualification.

Several people asserted that this was the largest throng Wayanad had ever seen, surpassing the turnout for Rahul Gandhi's arrival to register his candidature from this hilly area for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In 2019, Rahul Gandhi defeated P.P. Suneer of the CPI by an astounding margin of more than four lakh votes to win the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat.

On Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi arrived at Kannur, from whence they took a chopper to Kalpetta in the Wayanad region of Kerala.

All of them entered an open vehicle that went forward with much difficulty as the crowd pushed forward to get a better look at the Congress leader after the top state Congress leaders met him at the helipad.

Senior Congress leaders such as AICC General Secretary K. C Venugopal, KPCC president K. Sudhakaran, AICC General Secretary Tariq Anwar and Leader of Opposition in the state assembly V D Satheesan, Muslim League State President Panakkad Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, will also participate in the UDF-organised conference.

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