Congress fields Ajay Rai against PM Modi in Varanasi: 5 points

The Congress party has once again fielded Ajay Rai from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat. Rai, who heads the UP party, will take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is the third time Ajay Rai will face Prime Minister Modi in the Lok Sabha elections.

Here are five facts about Ajay Rai:

1. Ajay Rai was born on October 7, 1969 in Varanasi to Surendra Rai and Parvati Devi Rai. Mr Rai graduated from Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith University in Varanasi and was known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ‘karyakarta’ before becoming the convener of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) began his political career.

2. In 1996, Mr. Rai contested his first Assembly election from Kolasla constituency in Uttar Pradesh on the ticket of the Bharatiya Janata Party and won. He retained the seat in 2002 and again in 2007. Two years later, he quit the BJP after being unable to contest the Lok Sabha elections. He contested the Varanasi polls in 2009 as a member of the Samajwadi Party and finished third behind Murli Manohar Joshi of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Mukhtar Ansari of the Bahujan Samaj Party.

3. Ajay Rai was re-elected to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in the 2009 Kolasla by-elections, this time as an independent candidate. He joined the Congress party in 2012 and won the newly created Pinda Assembly seat in Varanasi.

4. He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi and finished a distant third behind Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal. In 2017, he contested in the UP assembly elections from Pindra seat and lost.

5. In 2019, Ajay Rai once again contested against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat. Prime Minister Modi won resoundingly with 63% of the vote, while Rai finished third behind Shalini Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. In 2023, he was appointed chairman of the UP unit of Congress.