Ajay Rai: 'Congress chose me to fight Narendra Modi in Varanasi. If Priyanka Gandhi had fought, she would have won against him'

Q. What are your chances contesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

Last time, Narendra Modi won the elections by giving big promises, so people actually pinned their hopes in him and they thought that some development work will be done.

Unfortunately, nothing of that sort happened in the city. The type of work which should have been done in Varanasi, considering it is the PM’s constituency, well, nothing has taken place.

For sure, I will defeat Modi. 

Q. But what’s your view on the enormous roadshow PM took out on Thursday?

The crowd which you saw in the road show were all people, I think, who had been arranged for this rally. They were all BJP workers standing in the roadshow and no one was from the city, all of them were called from different parts of the state.

Last time, in 2014, people were enthusiastic to meet Modi — this time, we saw nothing like that. I will say that everything was arranged by an event management company. Flowers worth lakhs were thrown on Modi — did the supporters in the road show bring the flowers from their own pocket? The flowers were given to them in a packets, apparently Rs 30 lakhs was spent only on flowers and it seems crores of rupee were spent on putting up balloons. Last time, it was not like this, people had bought flowers and garlands on their own. The whole show which was carried out at the ‘ghats’ of Ganga was also done, in my view, by an event management company.

I will also come out with a road show on April 29 — everyone can see that too. This is the day when I will file my nomination.

See, I don’t have the sort of money BJP has spent during the road show. I will try to gather supporters and do a ‘padh yatra’ towards the nomination office. In fact, I have requested Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi both to be present when I will file the nomination papers. There is a possibility that they might come afterwards during campaigning.

Q. Why did Congress not field Priyanka Gandhi against Modi?

The decision why Priyanka didn’t fight elections from Varanasi was taken at the highest level — in fact, we had invited Priyanka to fight from Varanasi. There is no doubt that if she would have fought Modi, she would have won too.

Q. What are some of the issues on which you are fighting elections?

People have lost faith in Narendra Modi. He had said that in Banaras, industry will come — after demonetisation, all small and big industry got destroyed. Modi ruined the un-organised sector. Where is the Rs 15 lakhs he promised to put in poor peoples' bank accounts?

We will give the poor people Rs 72,000 through Rahul Gandhi’s ‘nyay’ scheme.

Q. What’s your view on Shalini Yadav, the SP’s candidate from the same constituency?

See, the SP-BSP didn’t have a candidate — that’s why they had resorted to getting a Congress face.

Even SP-BSP workers will not work with Shalini Yadav.

She was with us till last week — how will she fight against us?

I was the one who had gone to her and asked her to fight the mayoral elections. The whole Congress party was behind her. This time around, she must have thought that she wanted to contest the Lok Sabha elections, but the party must have thought that they will field an old face.

I don’t even consider SP as a contestant in this constituency. Last time, BJP came first, AAP second, Congress third. This time, AAP is not there, so the fight is between BJP and Congress. Last time, SP’s government was there in this state and their own minister had fought the elections — he managed merely 45,000 votes.

Also read: PM Modi in Varanasi: Priyanka Gandhi conspicuous by absence. Her not contesting against Modi in Varanasi shows Congress is not serious