In Varanasi, Modi shows his popularity is unbeatable

  It’s truly a naak ki ladai (prestige battle) in the eight Assembly seats in Varanasi. The Lok Sabha constituency is represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that makes the contest even more interesting. The Bharatiya Janata Party put everything it had to make the Prime Minister’s March 4 road show a massive success. The rival Samajwadi Party-Congress too held its road jamboree. Modi will be there until March 6, the last day of campaigning in the constituency. His rivals believe that the Prime Minister’s image will take a beating if the BJP can be defeated in the region. There are eight Assembly constituencies, of which the BJP had won three in the 2012 election. Interestingly, all the three seats were located in Varanasi proper – Varanasi North, Varanasi South and Varanasi Cantt. One, Rohaniya, had gone to the Apna Dal, now an ally of the BJP. This time, the regional outfit is contesting as part of the NDA in two constituencies: Rohaniya and Sevapuri. While the Bahujan Samaj Party bagged two, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party had won in one each. Given that the latter two are now allied, the coalition is hoping for a better performance. Expectations are high in all camps, though for different reasons. The BJP is banking on Prime Minister Modi’s charm and charisma, the SP’s internal bickering and the BSP’s inability (so far) to stitch a broad-based social coalition. The SP and the Congress are depending on their respective votes coming together to shore up the numbers, and the BSP is expecting is vote-bank, especially in the reserved seat of Ajagara, to come to its aid. Besides, the party is anticipating a split in the Muslim votes to its advantage. But these are at the end of the day, expectations and speculations. Varanasi is a chaotic town and nobody there blames their Lok Sabha representative Modi for it. And yet, they were expecting some sort of a magic wand to rid the holy place of its misery. Pot-holed roads, unmanageable traffic, dirt all around, poor state of power supply etc, are some of the issues that have harried the residents of this holy town. There is a buzz, though, that things are on the way to improvement since Modi took charge. The ghat-cleaning drive has shown positive and visible results, and new roads and even flyovers are being constructed. That has of course added to the chaos on the roads, but residents are willing to be patient. They have become conditioned to that state of living. The clash of politics means that both the BJP and the SP blame each other for the sorry affairs in the town and the larger constituency in general. The BJP has a point: The State has been ruled for more than 14 years now by either the BSP or the SP. If civic amenities are at a breakdown point, the local Government should be primarily answerable. On the other hand, Modi’s rivals in the district are ridiculing the Prime Minister’s failure as Varanasi’s Member of Parliament to bring the achche din he had promised to the people of his constituency. If something good has been done, both the SP and the BJP rush to take credit; failure is promptly dumped on the other. What had happened in the 2014 Lok Sabha poll was a Modi wave that swept the constituency. He had won by a margin of more than 3.7 lakh votes. Does that wave exist? We don’t know. In any case, the dynamics of a state election are different from that of national one. A year ago, the SP had swept the panchayat elections from Varanasi district. It had bagged 60 of the 74 district panchayat chairperson’s election, with the BJP candidate losing in Varanasi too. Then, the BJP had shrugged off the loss as having no real larger significance. If it now does badly in the Assembly poll from Varanasi district, the defeat will not be as easily explained away. If the March 4 road show is any indication, the Prime Minister still enjoys huge popularity in the constituency. A good showing by the BJP in the eight constituencies will be directly attributed to him. Conversely, a less satisfactory performance would be an embarrassment. Incidentally, there is no sign of Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party this time around. Kejriwal had confidently taken on Modi in the 2014 general election and lost miserably. That, one supposes, had ended his grand dream. His so-called strong support base has evaporated into thin air. Neither is there a party organisation nor is there a cadre.