Selection of candidate for Varanasi against Bharatiya Janta Party’s prime ministerial candidates Narendra Modi is proving a hard nut to crack for the Congress as everyone in the Party is `ready’ to fight against the Gujrat chief minister but no one is `willing’ to be sacrificed in the name of fighting the most interesting battle of ballots in the Holy city. Interestingly, the Congress high-command particularly, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, were more puzzled as they wanted to corner Modi out of Gujrat but the million dollar question before them that who will be the right `choice’.
Sources in the Congress confirmed that the Party do not want Varanasi to be a cake walk for Narendra Modi and is doing every bit to somehow defeat him in the Holy city just to give a message that BJP’s prime ministerial candidate is just a leader of Gujrat and having no national acceptability. The Party is also riding high of Minority vote bank hoping that a particularly community would unite in the name of defeating Narendra Modi. Besides the minority vote, the traditional Congress vote bank along with capitalizing sentiments of the Brahmins, who according to Party sources were annoyed with shifting of sitting MP from Varanasi, Murli Manohar Joshi to Kanpur, Congress hoped of finding a best opportunity to settle scores with Modi who made claims of his `wave’ sweeping the entire country.
However, the game plan of Congress seems to have remains a dream as one hand they received a major setback after mafia don turned politician, Mokhtar Ansari, declared to contest against Narendra Modi, and on the other hand they failed to find any suitable candidate till now who could be fit to take-on Narendra Modi. It may be mentioned that Mokhtar Ansari was defeated just by a narrow margin of 17,000 votes by Murli Manohar Joshi in last Parliament elections, though he contested that time with Bahujan Samaj Party’s support. This time, he was fighting on his own Party’s ticket but still he seems to have given a setback to Congress who now sees division of minority vote bank which could pave way for an easy victory for Narendra Modi.
Sources said that another big problem for Congress is that except for veteran leader, Karn Singh, who till now not gave his consent to fight against Modi, though he is the most favorite choice of the Party, all the other leaders claimed that they were ready and eager to contest from Varanasi but the reality if that none of them is `willing’ to fight against Gujrat chief minister as they not wanted to `sacrifice’ themselves in the name of fighting the biggest battle of democracy in Varanasi. Not only commerce minister, Anand Sharma, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijay Singh, Ajai Rai, former MP of Varansi, Rajesh Mishra, fromer ClP leaders Pramod Tewari, former AICC spokesman, Rasheed Alvi, and many more senior leaders claimed that they were ready to take-on Modi but even leaders like Siraj Mehndi, and one Parvez Akhtar, of Jharkhand, who never won any elections also made similar claims. Sources, however, confirmed that besides leaders like Siraj and Parvez, who had nothing to lose and everything to gain, none of the others leader is `willing’ to contest the battle of ballots with Narendra Modi as they do not wanted to get themselves `sacrificed’.
Interestingly, sources also confirmed that Congress is looking for some Brahmin leader so that they could capitalize on sentiments of the community following their anger of refusal of ticket to Murli Manohar Joshi, but the self-proclaimed `Brahmin’ face in UP, Pramod Tewari, who creates a record of winning Assembly elections 9 time in rough from Rampur Khas in Pratapgarh, had reportedly convey his mood against fighting elections from Varanasi, though before media he claimed to be ready to take on the battle if directed by the Congress.