Lok Sabha elections 2014: Congress likely to field Ajai Rai against Narendra Modi

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: A five-time MLA and an ex-BJP man who has twice changed parties may become Congress candidate against Narendra Modi in Varanasi. Senior Congress leaders told ET Ajai Rai — currently Congress MLA from Pindra, an assembly seat that falls in Varanasi’s neighbouring parliamentary constituency — has been more or less finalised as the candidate.

These leaders, who did not want to be identified, said the rationale for picking Rai is that as a Bhumihar and a local who gave a “good fight in 2009” — Rai came third as an SP candidate in a contest that BJP’s MM Joshi won narrowly — he will have more traction than a star candidate parachuted from outside.

Rai is locally seen as a politician with a considerable support base in the Brahmin-Bhumihar communities. Congress leaders said they saw BJP’s ticket distribution in UP as having created “considerable unhappiness in the Brahmin-Bhumihar communities”.

Rai’s candidature will better tap into this disaffection, Congress leaders said, than renominating Rajesh Mishra, who was Congress candidate in Varanasi in 2009 and came a distant fourth. Rai left BJP after the party denied him the Varanasi Lok Sabha ticket in 2009. He left SP after the party did not give him an assembly ticket in the 2012 state elections.

He won from Pindra as an Independent and later joined Congress. Rai had earlier told ET that were Congress to file a nonlocal candidate the party “would send wrong signals”. If Congress nominates Rai, Modi will face AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, local don Mukhtar Ansari (who came second on a BSP ticket in 2009) and Rai in what appears to be crowded field.

As a young BJP hand, Rai shot into fame in 1996 after beating nine-term sitting CPI MLA Udal. Ajai Rai, a man with considerable muscle power behind him, has a history of opposing Mukhtar Ansari. His brother, Awadhesh Rai, was rumoured to have been killed as part of the same rivalry.

Ajai Rai has a long-standing feud with donturned-politician Ansari, who is contesting against Narendra Modi from Varanasi. Varanasi goes to poll in the last phase, on May 12.