Dubai With the Election Commission having announced the dates for the 16th Lok Sabha polls, the stage is set for all the national and regional parties to raise the pitch for campaigning. The announcement of the list of candidates by various political parties will now gather steam. And the one topic that is currently making the rounds from drawing room tea-circles to hardened political debates is Narendra Modi’s parliamentary seat for the impending make-or-break elections. Will it be in Uttar Pradesh (UP), Gujarat or perhaps both?
The way things stand right now, it is quite likely that Modi — the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) prime ministerial candidate — may be fielded from two seats: From UP as well as his home state of Gujarat.
The UP unit of BJP is extremely keen on fielding Modi from the state. Politically too, UP is of immense importance in BJP’s scheme of things. It is the state that sends the largest number of members to parliament — 80 — and to get anywhere near the magic figure of 272, anything beyond 40 seats in the key battleground state in the Hindi heartland will give BJP that much more bargaining power as and when it goes shopping for allies in a hung parliament. According to BJP insiders, Modi fighting from any seat in UP close to the Bihar-UP border will give the party immense political mileage in both the battleground states in the “cow belt”.
Strong message
“UP and Bihar jointly account for 120 Lok Sabha seats and Modi fighting the polls from a seat like Varanasi or even Lucknow will send very strong vibes to voters of both these states. The BJP central leadership is also aware of this and that is why it has always been very keen on fielding Modi from UP. Modi only knows it too well that BJP is unlikely to make much of an impact in any of the southern and eastern states. So northern and western India are crucial to BJP’s fortunes and Modi fighting from UP will send out a strong message to voters not just in UP, but also in the rest of the Hindi heartland states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan,” Bhavesh Shah, principal correspondent and senior political analyst with the DNA newspaper in Ahmedabad, told Gulf News.
Interestingly, starting from last September, when Modi’s name was announced by his party as its prime ministerial candidate, and until early last month, the possibility of Modi fighting the polls from UP and UP alone was very strong, with Varanasi being zeroed in as the likely seat for him. However, there is a hitch with regard to this particular constituency.
The sitting MP from Varanasi is Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, a veteran BJP leader and former Union minister. Ever since the Joshi camp came to know about Modi’s preference for Varanasi, strong feelers were sent out to party president Rajnath Singh to dissuade Modi from picking that seat. Joshi supporters have already opened an election office in Varanasi and started distributing campaign pamphlets, to turn the heat on Modi and force him to move elsewhere.
Speaking to Gulf News from Lucknow last Sunday, Praveen Kumar, deputy resident editor and political observer with the Times of India, said: “Joshi had lost the 2004 elections from Allahabad. So in 2009, he moved to Varanasi, which he considered to be a safe bet and he had won from there. Obviously, he does not like the idea of vacating the seat for Modi.
So there is a tussle going on within the state unit of BJP over Varanasi right now. As a compromise formula, Lucknow, Allahabad and even Ayodhya-Faizabad are being kept on the radar.” In fact, efforts are on to move Joshi to either Allahabad or Kanpur, though he is extremely reluctant to accept it. Modi, on the other hand, is reportedly not keen on any seat in UP other than Varanasi, since it is such an important Hindu pilgrimage centre and has a strong Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh presence. “A clearer picture will emerge by the middle of this month when BJP is most likely to announce Modi’s candidature. Until this internal impasse is sorted out, BJP will avoid naming Modi’s seat in UP,” Kumar said.
AAP factor
Adding a new twist to the tale, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders announced at a rally in Kanpur last Sunday that party supremo and former Delhi chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, will likely contest from Varanasi should the BJP field Modi from that seat. This has also added a new dimension to UP. “So BJP may actually go a little slow before committing Modi to any particular seat in UP, although AAP is unlikely to maintain the kind of clout among voters in UP that it had shown in the Delhi assembly elections,” Kumar said.
Given the fluid situation in UP, Modi’s home state of Gujarat has always been the stock option for the party. “Modi knows Gujarat like the back of his hand and he can just pick any seat of his choice from the state. Though AAP has said it will field candidates in Gujarat and even against Modi, if he decides to fight from the state, yet, it is unlikely to make much of a dent in the BJP vote bank in the state,” Bhavesh said.
