Ajay Rai

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Ajay Rai (born 7 October 1969) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress since 2012. He is a five-time MLA from Uttar Pradesh and the 12th Uttar Pradesh Congress chief. A local strongman politician in the Varanasi area, Rai has changed his party affiliations several times. He began his political career as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party's student wing. He won the Legislative Assembly elections from the Kolasla constituency three times in a row between 1996 and 2007 on a BJP ticket. He left the party after being denied a Lok Sabha ticket. He then joined the Samajwadi Party and unsuccessfully contested the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Subsequently, he won the 2009 Legislative Assembly by-election from the Kolasla constituency as an independent. He joined the Indian National Congress in 2012. After the Kolasla constituency ceased to exist post-delimitation, he won the 2012 Assembly elections from the newly created Pindra constituency, which comprises a sizeable portion of the former Kolasla constituency. He was the Congress candidate for the Varanasi parliament seat in the 2014, 2019, and 2024 general elections, and lost to Narendra Modi.