The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee is keen to field senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Varanasi and will soon send a proposal in this regard to the top leadership, said newly appointed party’s state president Ajay Rai on Sunday.
Rai has lost three Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi — as a Congress candidate in 2014 and 2019 to Prime Minister Narendra Modi — and as a Samajwadi Party candidate to BJP stalwart Murli Manohar Joshi in 2009.
”We want Priyanka Gandhi to contest the Lok Sabha elections from Varanasi. For this, we will soon send a proposal to the party leadership,” Rai, who recently took over as the state Congress president, told PTI.
“Priyanka Gandhi can contest from any seat she wants and we will make her win the elections with all our might, but we wish that she contests from Varanasi,” he added.
Varanasi is the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi was elected from Varanasi for the second consecutive time in 2019 and there is a strong possibility of him contesting from the same seat in 2024 as well.
Asked what message the Congress wants to send by wanting to pit Priyanka Gandhi against Modi, Rai said, ”The only message it is trying to send is that there is someone standing strong against him (Modi).” The Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency has been a BJP stronghold since 1991, with the Congress winning it only once in 2004. The seat remained with the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections of 1991, 1996, 1998 and 1999, and also in the mid-term elections.
Rajesh Kumar Mishra of the Congress was elected from the seat in 2004, but BJP won back the constituency in 2009.
Varanasi, located in Purvanchal, has a wide influence over the region expanding across eastern Uttar Pradesh up to western Bihar.
Rai (53) was pitted against Modi in the 2014 and 2019 polls as the Congress candidate from Varanasi and got 75,614 votes and 1,52,548 votes.
The new state Congress chief had contested from the same seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 2009 and got 1,23,874 votes. Rai, who is seen as a ’bahubali’ (strongman) leader, is a five-time MLA.
With inputs from News18