The seat of Indi is set for a three way tussle as Sophie Mirabella wins preselection to try to wrest power from Independent Cathy McGowan, who won in 2013 with a grassroots campaign.

Coalition partners The Nationals will also run a candidate in Indi, party leader Warren Truss said earlier in the year.

Mrs Mirabella had held the seat for 12 years before she was ousted by independent Cathy McGowan in a shock result at the 2013 federal election.

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Ms Mirabella, a former federal Liberal frontbencher, won her bid for Liberal Party preselection in her former seat of Indi, in Victoria’s northeast.

Former Melbourne Ports candidate Kevin Ekendahl and anaesthetist Andrew Walpole had also been vying for preselection.

About 200 party delegates made the decision at a convention in Benalla.

Mrs Mirabella’s win means she will come up against Ms McGowan again in the next election.

Mrs Mirabella said she had learned a lot since the “very brutal and difficult campaign” for the 2013 election, when she lost the seat.

“You don’t go through an experience like I did and not be changed — I made mistakes, I got the balance wrong,” she said.

“I spent more time campaigning elsewhere when I should have been back here in Indi.”

Ms McGowan, who ran a strong grass-roots campaign in 2013, said the fight for her re-election would begin today.

“Our campaign will continue to be values-based, will continue to focus on social media, will continue to be a community campaign, so we’ll give lots of people an opportunity to participate and learn about politics,” she said.

“I think the approach that we took that I’m an independent member of Parliament, that I work with the community and I represent the community and that we’ll be values driven and work to be our best selves, that will all continue.”

Reward for ‘passion, tenacity’

Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger said Mrs Mirabella received an “overwhelming endorsement” from the party’s members.

“Soph did make mistakes, but boy, Australians are forgiving and you really have to reward someone who has the passion, the tenacity, of someone like Sophie Mirabella,” he said.

“To come back from that, she won very well today, she gave a brilliant, humbling speech, she’s going to commit herself 100 per cent to this electorate.”

Ms McGowan said she could not comment on how the Liberal Party could approach the campaign, but said she intended to run on her policy achievements, including improvements in mobile phone coverage.

“I think the policies that we will put up will show a way forward and people will have a good choice about where they’re going to go,” she said.

“Someone told me the other day, they said Indi’s had 113 years of party representation and we’ve only had two years of an independent and we want a lot more.

“I think the difference in the next campaign will be going to the electorate and offering them a choice of a strong independent who represents them in Canberra versus a party person.”

National Party leader Warren Truss confirmed earlier this year that the party would also run a candidate in the electorate.

“Certainly we are interested in contesting the seat of Indi at the next election,” he said.

“I think that the people of Indi would really like to be part of the decision-making process [in government], and the Nationals are determined to give them that option at the next election.”