Thiruvananthapuram, June 18 : Senior BJP leader and former Union Minister V. Muraleedharan on Tuesday slammed Rahul Gandhi for vacating the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, saying that he is trying to convert the constituency into a family property.

On Monday Rahul Gandhi announced that he was vacating Wayanad. Following this, the Congress decided to field his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra to contest the seat.

'This is blatant cheating by Rahul to the voters at Wayanad. In all fairness, he should have informed people at Wayanad during campaigning only that he may vacate the seat in case he wins the other. But he waited for the voting to finish at Wayanad and when it was over, then only he announced his decision to contest the Raebareli seat. This is nothing but cheating,' said Muraleedharan.

Rahul Gandhi repeated his win in the Wayanad seat but with a reduced margin in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls.

In 2019 he won with over 4.30 lakh votes And in the 2024 Lok Sabha election Rahul Gandhi's victory margin came down to 3.6 lakh votes.

State BJP president K. Surendran, who finished a distant third in the recent polls, said now that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is going to be fielded from his seat, the Gandhi family can allocate the upcoming Palakkad Assembly seat, where a bye-election is due, to Robert Vadra.

/IANS