Lucknow, Apr 15: Amid uncertainity over Ram Jethmalani staying in the contest, congress today decided to field its own candidate Akhilesh Das, a Rajya Sabha member against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Das will file his nomination today, the last date of filing papers, ahead of Vajpayee, who is expected to do it around noon, highly placed Congress sources said. This follows the possibility of Congress-backed independent candidate Ram Jethmalani withdrawing from the contest after Vajpayee's appeal to him last night to do so. Vajpayee had cited 40 years of friendship between them to appeal to him to withdraw from the contest. Jethmalani, who left for London last night, had said that he was contesting elections for the matter of national duty and not friendship but would decide on Vajpayee's appeal after consulting his supporters and parties which are backing him. However, Congress sources in Delhi said that though Jethmalani has communicated to the party leadership that he was not going to withdraw his candidature against the Prime Minister, the party has decided to field Akhilesh Das, son of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Banarsi Das Gupta. Das would be willing to withdraw his candidature if Jethmalani continued to be in the fray, they said. Bureau Report