Varanasi: Congress candidate from Varanasi Ajay Rai would file his nomination on Thursday for the mega contest in which he is pitted against BJP's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal among others.
Rai, a sitting MLA, said he has already sought support of the top brass of the Congress including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi to campaign for him in the constituency from where BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi had won in 2009 polls.
"I will file my nomination on April 17. Union Minister Anand Sharma has agreed to come for my nomination. I have already requested Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other leaders to campaign in this land of Mahadev," Rai told PTI.
Filing of nomination for Varanasi constituency will start on April 17 and will continue till April 24. The election would be held in the final round of polling on May 12.
The Congress candidate said though Priyanka Gandhi has already made it clear that she will campaign only in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the constituencies of her mother Sonia and brother Rahul, he will still request her to campaign in Varanasi.
"I will still request her to campaign here," Rai said. AAP's Kejriwal, who arrived in the city this morning for a month-long campaign, is likely to file his nomination on April 23.
Rai also blamed BJP of conspiring to put Muslim strongman leader Mukhtar Ansari in the fray so that minority votes get divided between him and Samajwadi Party. Rai had fought last Lok Sabha elections as a SP candidate, while Ansari was BSP candidate.
Since then, Ansari and his brothers have formed Qaumi Ekta Dal and is currently an MLA, while Rai is a Congress MLA right now.
Ansari had earlier said he would fight against Modi, but recently decided against contesting Lok Sabha polls and has said he does not want anti-Modi votes to get divided.
Also in the fray is SP's Kailash Chaurasia, and BSP's Vijay Prakash Jaiswal and both the parties are putting their claims on minority, Dalit and backward votes.
SP's state secretary and Uttar Pradesh Janjatiya Lok Kala Sanskriti Sansthan Chairman Manoj Rai Dhoopchandi said that the party would get huge support from minorities, backward and extreme backward caste voters as the state government has worked hard for their development.
"We are asking for votes on the basis of development work done by our government," he said, while accusing Kejriwal and Rai of trying to usurp SP's vote bank of minorities.
He said that the people of Varanasi would not be lured by them as they now that Kejriwal was an outsider and even Rai was wrongly claiming to be a local leader as his MLA constituency was hardly within Varanasi Lok Sabha area.
"Besides, people know that Rai is an ex-BJP leader and he has changed many parties, making him unacceptable among people here," he said.
Some Muslim leaders, on the other hand said, they do not want to be very vocal against Modi and the community is rather focussing on supporting candidates who can fight corruption or those who can work for local issues.
In 2009, there was reportedly huge polarisation against Ansari in Varanasi, and Murli Manohar Joshi could sail through by a small margin. Local leaders say that Joshi could muster enough support at the last moment after some other candidates pledged their support to BJP to defeat Ansari and they fear a similar situation against Modi this time.
Usman Gani, State Incharge of Momin Conference, which had been a major participant in Gandhian Khadi movement, categorically said that Aam Aadmi Party would fulfil the dreams of clean and secular India.
Surprisingly, neither has any major party announced any Muslim candidate so far for Varanasi seat, nor has any strong minority leader announced plans to fight independently.
Gani said he is hopeful that Quami Ekta Dal would also lend its support to Kejriwal as he was the only leader to stand up to the stature of Modi.
