Congress woos veteran SP leader's son to contest from Nehru's home town of Allahabad

Lucknow: In an apparent indication that it wants to make a determined push to wrest Allahabad, the home town of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, from the BJP, the Congress has been trying to persuade veteran Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Reoti Raman Singh's son and former UP minister Ujjwal Raman Singh to contest from there on its symbol in the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll.

According to the UP Congress sources, senior leaders of the party had a meeting with Reoti Raman Singh, who had represented the Allahabad LS constituency twice in 2004 and 2009, at a super speciality hospital here a few days back where he had been admitted following illness and offered to field his son Ujjwal from Allahabad LS seat on Congress ticket.

The Allahabad LS seat is currently represented by former UP Congress president Reeta Bahuguna Joshi, who had crossed over to the BJP before the 2019 LS polls and was given a ticket from there by the saffron party.

According to the sources in the BJP, Reeta Bahuguna Joshi was likely to be dropped this time by the saffron party.

Congress sources said that Reoti Raman Singh has agreed to its offer. ''Ujjwal Raman will, in all likelihood, contest from Allahabad on Congress ticket,'' remarked a state Congress leader, while speaking to DH here. An official announcement in this regard was expected to be made in the next few days, the leader added.

The leader also claimed that Ujjwal Raman had met SP president Akhilesh Yadav and discussed the Congress' offer and that the Akhilesh had given his green signal.

SP sources said that there was resentment among the party workers and leaders after the party offered the Allahabad LS seat to Congress, its alliance partner in the state and member of the I.N.D.I.A. bloc. ''A nomination to Ujjwal Raman will help placate the party workers,'' said an SP leader here.

The Allahabad LS constituency has a special significance for the Congress as the town had the ancestral home of Moti Lal Nehru, father of Jawah Lal Nehru, which was known as 'Anand Bhavan'. It was constructed by Moti Lal Nehru in 1930 after his previous ancestral home 'Swaraj Bhavan' was transformed into the local headquarter of the Congress during the freedom struggle.