Cong fields Ajay Rai to take on Modi in Varanasi

New Delhi: The Congress fielded its Uttar Pradesh unit chief Ajay Rai to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from Varanasi for the third time.

In its fourth list of 46 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Congress also named leader Digvijay Singh to contest from Madhya Pradesh’s Rajgarh Lok Sabha constituency and Imran Masood from Saharanpur. Former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat’s son Virender Rawat has been fielded from Haridwar.

A veteran political leader from Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Rai challenged PM Modi in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections as well from Varanasi but lost both times. Rai began his career with student wing ABVP and won the UP Assembly elections from the Kolasla constituency three times in a row between 1996 and 2007 on a BJP ticket.

After being denied a ticket, Rai ditched the BJP to join the Samajwadi Party as the saffron party picked veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi as its Lok Sabha candidate from Varanasi. He then lost the election against Joshi.

In 2012, Rai joined the Congress and won the UP Assembly elections from the Pindra constituency. In 2017, Rai lost the state election from Pindra as a Congress candidate.

In the last Lok Sabha polls, Rai secured the third position from the Varanasi seat by bagging only 1.52 lakh votes. He got a vote share of 14.38 per cent against PM Modi’s vote share of 63.62 per cent.

Rai is from the Bhumihar community, which has some influence and political weight in certain pockets of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Purvanchal once used to be a Congress stronghold, but now is dominated by the BJP.