Dubai: A margin of 337,000 votes will not be easy for any party or candidate to wipe out. And they are all admitting it – off-the-record of course. That was the victory margin that Narendra Modi, then the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate, had mustered from Varanasi against his nearest rival, Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party, in the 2014 general elections – garnering a whopping 56.4 per cent of the total votes polled. As India enters the final phase of a more-than-month-long seven-phase election schedule on May 19, the eyes of the entire nation and many beyond will be on this high-profile seat, where Modi, now the Prime Minister, is seeking re-election in a field of 25 other candidates – foremost among them being Ajay Rai of Congress and Shalini Yadav of the Samajwadi Party (SP)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) combine.
Varanasi has always been a BJP stronghold for almost three decades now, with the party winning this seat in eastern Uttar Pradesh since 1991. 2004 was the only exception, when Congress candidate Rajesh Kumar Mishra won the seat.
This time around, the BJP top-brass has left no stone unturned to make sure Modi has an even smoother ride than 2014 and has tried to iron out even the slightest possible crease that could be present in the form of anti-incumbency and voter-fatigue. According to reports, on an average, every active BJP worker in the area had been given the responsibility to meet members of at least 10 families from the constituency over the last few days of campaigning to put the party’s message across. In addition, senior Union ministers such as Railways Minister Piyush Goyal and Foreign Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj have addressed rallies and conducted meetings at nukkads (neighbourhoods) in Varanasi in the last leg of campaigning. BJP also claims to have spent Rs420 billion (Dh21.92 billion) towards the development of Varanasi’s civic facilities, infrastructure, sprucing up of the famed ghaats (river banks) and cleaning up of the Ganges over the last five years of its rule in Delhi – a claim that is often refuted by the opposition parties.
While the BJP is assiduously trying to ensure a Modi victory by an even bigger margin this time around, for the SP-BSP alliance and Congress, the challenge is to try and reduce Modi’s margin as much as possible over 2014. “The fight in Varanasi is clearly between the BJP and Congress. There’s no triangular contest happening here,” Rai, who had finished third in 2014, commented a couple of days back -- in an obvious attempt to negate the presence of the SP-BSP candidate in this holy city of the Hindu religion.
In 2014, Kejriwal’s decision to take on Modi in Varanasi was political adventurism at best and banking on cheap thrills at worst, as the results clearly showed. On Thursday, as and when the electronic voting machines are opened for counting, it will be interesting to see who plays ‘Kejriwal’ in 2019! Or will Varanasi’s 1.76 million voters spring a surprise for Modi by giving him a reduced mandate? Keep watching.
