The wait that appeared to deflate the enthusiasm of many a Congress worker, a few of whom left the party for BJP, finally ended on Tuesday when the party announced Ajai Rai as its candidate from Varanasi.
Currently the Congress MLA from Pindra, Rai will take on BJP’s PM candidate Narendra Modi and AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal, besides Kailash Chaurasia and Vijay Prakash Jaiswal of SP and BSP, respectively.
The announcement comes a day after the local party unit consulted with the top officebearers of the AICC and decided to launch its campaign, irrespective of whether or not the nominee is announced.
Confirming Rai’s candidature from Varanasi, district Congress president Praja Nath Sharma said: “It is official. He will be our candidate. We were already assured by the AICC that the candidate will be a local person. Our preparations for the campaign are already in place. We are on the road from April 9.”
Earlier, the mood in the Congress camp appeared to be getting despondent and it got reflected in a couple of prominent local leaders joining the BJP, during the visit of the latter’s UP in-charge, Amit Shah, last week.
Following the announcement, Rai was given a welcome by partyworkers at Town Hall from where they were supposed to launch the campaign with the slogan ‘Jaago aur Jagao, Varanasi Bachao (wake up yourself and others, save Varanasi)’.
The Congress unit had already been pitching for a local candidate to fight the battle on the lines of ‘local’ versus ‘outsiders’.