Congress to field Ajay Rai against Narendra Modi in Varanasi

VARANASI: Putting an end to weeks of speculation, Congress on Tuesday announced that it will field local candidate Ajay Rai against BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi in Varanasi.

With this decision, Varanasi is set for a battle between BJP's Narendra Modi, Congress' Ajay Rai and Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal.

For some weeks, Rai's name had been among front runners from the Congress probable, even though the party had delayed the announcement in the wake of possibility for a joint consensus candidate by 'secular parties' against the BJP prime ministerial candidate.

Rai, a bhumihar, has been a five-time MLA and has switched parties twice. A former BJP man, Rai quit the party after he was denied a ticket for the 2009 polls. Rai then contested them on a SP ticket and finished third behind BJP MP Murli Manohar Joshi and BSP's Mukhtar Ansari. This year, Ansari has announced its candidature from his own party, Quami Ektata Dal.

As reported in ET earlier, Rai holds sway over a sizeable chunk of the Bhumihar-Brahmin voters, which Modi will have to wean away to seal his victory from Varanasi.

Considered a strongman in eastern UP, Rai was close to several national leaders of the BJP at one time and was hoping to win the party's candidature in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi won the Varanasi seat with a margin of just over 17,000 votes with Ansari, then on a BSP ticket coming second -BSP expelled him in 2010. The SP and Congress had ended coming third and fourth, respectively. In 2004, Rajesh Mishra of the Congress had won the seat.

(With inputs from ET Bureau)