Vivek Bansal, the Congress candidate from the Koil seat of Aligarh, in many ways, is an example of what is wrong with the party in Uttar Pradesh and tells us a thing or two about electoral politics. Immensely popular, the All Indian Congress Committee in charge of Haryana won the Aligarh seat in 2002 but since then he has been losing at the hustings from Koil. He lost the 2012 poll by just 500 votes to a Samajwadi Party candidate, while in 2017, he finished third behind the BJP and the SP.
The war horse is at it again, appealing to people to rise above polarisation in one of the most educated constituencies that will go to the polls on February 10. Observers say, apart from Mathura, the Koil seat is the only Assembly constituency where the Congress is in with a chance in the first phase. He is locked in a triangular contest with Ajju Ishaq of the Samajwadi Party and sitting MLA Anil Parashar of the BJP.
