Daijiworld Media Network - Wayanad (SR)

Wayanad, Apr 6: It is a hard time for Kerala’s Wayanad constituency to digest the metaphor of Rahul, Rahul and Rahul vs Raghul. Amidst all heated up discussions and doubts when Wayanad goes into polls on April 23, Congress president Rahul Gandhi will not only have to deal just political rivals, but also impersonators who claim to be families of Congress supporters.

Wayanad is one of the most backward regions in Kerala that is home to many indigenous tribal communities and it is also easy to deceive them by playing with similar names and tricks. Hence, the contestants named Rahul Gandhi K E and Raghul Gandhi K are raising not just the political rivalry but also a question of confusion. These contestants submitted their nominations hours after the Congress chief filed his nomination papers in Wayanad on Thursday.

Rahul Gandhi

K E Rahul Gandhi (left) and K Raghul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi K E (33), a resident of Erumeli village in Kottayam, is a research scholar on folk music. He has nominated as an independent candidate. It is reported that their father late Kunjumon, a driver by profession, was a Congressman and an admirer of the Gandhi family.

According to a report in Times of India, local panchayat member Prakash Pulikkal said Kunjumon was a Congress worker and hence named his sons Rahul and Rajiv. “The sons have no links to the Congress, but Rajiv is a CPM follower. Their mother Valsamma is a daily worker. I think he has not consulted anyone at home and everyone in their locality was surprised to hear about his candidature,” Pulikkal said.

The other contestant, 30-year-old Raghul Gandhi K, is from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and contesting as a candidate of the Agila India Makkal Kazhagam.

Raghul said this is his third attempt in electoral politics. Earlier, he contested from Singanallur constituency in Coimbatore during the Tamil Nadu assembly elections in 2016 and for the Coimbatore civic body elections in 2014.

It is reported that his father Krishnan P was a local Congress leader who later switched to AIADMK. Raghul said, “During his Congress days, I was born and was named as Raghul Gandhi K. My sister was then named Indira Priyadarshini. Today that name given by my father has helped me take on the Congress president.

Forty-year-old Sanskrit teacher from a Thrissur school K M Sivaprasad Gandhi is the fourth Gandhi in the race. He is the candidate of Indian Gandhian Party.

Sivaprasad's father K K Mukundan had been a Congress worker, but the Gandhi in his name has nothing to do with his father's name, he says.

"Three years ago, I joined the Indian Gandhian Party and decided to add the surname Gandhi. I had notified the change of the name in the gazette.

"Our political agenda is to make all villages self-reliant. In the last 10 years, I have tried to meet Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi to submit our vision on development, but have not got the chance," he said.