Party members also said that had Gandhi been fielded from Varanasi she would have got tied down to the constituency, whereas since being appointed the Congress in-charge for entire eastern UP on January 23 she had swiftly infused fresh energy into the party and become its star campaigner across states.
The final decision however, they said, rested with Rahul Gandhi, and eventually he decided against giving his sister the go-ahead.
“Those statements (suggesting she would contest) were made to just pose an irritant to the BJP. She never intended to contest,” said a senior BJP leader, requesting not to be identified.
He said BJP president Amit Shah and Union minister Piyush Goyal had clearly said in Varanasi over the past two days that Gandhi was free to contest from the constituency but her party appeared to be in a dilemma over the matter.
Analysts said the decision not to field Gandhi, which came shortly after Modi had touched down in his constituency and was set to embark on a grand road show a day ahead of filing his nomination, meant that the Congress had conceded a walkover to the PM. While Rai had finished a distant third against Modi in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, SP’s Yadav was a Congress member until a week earlier.
So confident seemed PM Modi of his impending victory in Varanasi that he asked the crowd at a meeting later on Thursday if he should next visit the city only after winning the election.
Congress candidate Rai, who also lost the 2017 assembly election from Pindra in Varanasi district, put up a brave face though and said he would raise pertinent local issues in his campaign.
“My main issue will be the broken promises of Narendra Modi to Varanasi’s people and how the city is totally dug up. The Ganga has not been cleaned. The public knows it all,” he told ET.
“I had first made the appeal for Priyanka Gandhi to contest from Varanasi. I am grateful that the party has reposed its faith in a party worker like me to take on Modi again. Priyanka Gandhi’s support and encouragement, as the eastern UP in-charge is with me in this fight and she will campaign for me. I will try and come up to her expectations,” he said.
Rai’s comments came days after the party had begun stirring into action to prepare for Gandhi’s Varanasi campaign.
The state unit of the party is learnt to have been informally sounded off and her campaign planners were even working on a laneto-lane outreach to take her directly to the people of Varanasi, should the final go-ahead come, said a person cited earlier.
As soon as the Congress announced Rai’s candidature, it faced a barrage of criticism over fanning speculation over Gandhi contesting from the constituency. It had all started on March 28, when party cadre exhorted her to contest the election from the family stronghold of Rae Bareli and she shot back saying, “Why not Varanasi?” On Thursday, the Congress found itself in a spot trying to answer prickly variants of this question.