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In an organisational rejig ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress Thursday named former MLA Ajay Rai as the president of the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC), removing Brijlal Khabri frm the post.
Khabri had taken over as the UPCC chief in October last year. He had earlier been in the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for three decades. His appointment as the state Congress president months after the party’s debacle in the Assembly polls (its vote share had dropped to 2%) came as a surprise to many and created unease within the Congress ranks.
The decision to put Rai at the helm ahead of the 2024 polls reflects his rising stature within the party.
A Congress functionary said that senior party leader Rahul Gandhi played a key role in the appointment of Rai and will be increasingly involved in the affairs of the UP Congress in the coming days.
Rai now becomes a vocal face representing the Purvanchal region, especially Varanasi, where he has a key presence not just among the Bhumihar community that he belongs to, but also among the Brahmin and seer groups.
Rai is best known for unsuccessfully contesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. But he had begun his political career with the BJP, only joining the Congress in 2012.
A five-time MLA, Rai was elected to the UP Assembly three times on a BJP ticket — in 1996, 2002 and 2007 from the Kolasla seat in Varanasi.
In 2009, he hoped to contest the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi. However, with senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi getting the ticket, he resigned from the party to contest against Joshi on a Samajwadi Party (SP) ticket. Rai lost. Subsequently, he contested a bypoll from the Kolasla Assembly seat in the same year as an independent candidate and won.
Digvijaya Singh, who was Congress general secretary in charge of UP in 2012, played a significant role in Rai’s entry into the Congress. Rai then contested from the newly-formed Pindra seat in Varanasi as a Congress candidate and won.
Rai failed to win the Assembly polls in 2017 and 2022 but continued to hold significant organisational responsibilities in the Congress.
While Ajay could not win the 2017 election from Pindra and lost to Avadhesh Singh of the BJP, he was chosen by the Congress to contest against PM Modi from the Varanasi parliamentary seat in the 2014 general election, when Modi picked Varanasi as his constituency for the first time. In that election, when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s chief Arvind Kejriwal also took the plunge to contest against Modi, Rai finished third behind Kejriwal.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress again pitted Ajay against PM Modi in Varanasi. While Modi garnered over 6.5 lakh votes, SP candidate Shalini Yadav secured 1.95 lakh votes, with Ajay again coming third with 1.52 lakh votes. AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had then held a road show in his favour.
Rai has long had a muscleman image and was booked in several criminal cases over the years. He was also said to be associated with gangster-turned-politician Brijesh Singh.
In 2015, Rai was arrested in connection with a case of violence and arson during a protest rally by sadhus who were demanding permission for immersion of Ganesha idols in the Ganga. Rai had to serve over seven months in jail.
In December 2022, a sexual harassment FIR was registered against him for his remarks on Union minister and BJP Amethi MP Smriti Irani.
Replying to questions asked by reporters over the possibility of Rahul Gandhi contesting from Amethi in the 2024 elections, Rai had said: “It (Amethi) has been the seat of the Gandhi family. Rahulji has been the Lok Sabha MP from there. So has been Rajiv (Gandhi) ji and Sanjay (Gandhi) ji and they have served it.” He then went on to add: “Most of the factories in Amethi are on the verge of closure. Half of the factories in Jagdishpur industrial area are lying shut. Smriti Irani only comes, shows ‘latka-jhatka’, and leaves.”
