BJP turns Varanasi into a war zone

The BJP’s show of strength on Thursday against the withdrawal of permission to Narendra Modi to hold a rally in Varanasi is the party’s last-minute push to a campaign that has raised the hackles in a whole lot of rival political parties.

The BJP has despatched its entire brass and strategists, including senior leader Arun Jaitley and party general secretary Amit Shah, to Varanasi. This is to not just “polarise eastern Uttar Pradesh on communal lines”, an allegation levelled by the BSP, the Congress and the CPI(M), but psychologically create an aura of invincibility to Modi’s campaign.

The prolonged, nine-phase election comes to an end on May 12. Varanasi is among the 18 seats in Uttar Pradesh that go to the polls on Monday along with six seats in Bihar and 17 in West Bengal.

Although the BJP expects its vote share to rise in West Bengal and consolidate in Bihar, it is these 18 seats in UP in the last phase and 15 seats where polling was held on Wednesday that the party is hoping to notch up the maximum number of seats. BJP leaders claim they have breached the BSP’s Dalit stronghold as well as attracted the OBCs and extreme backward castes in UP.

To further galvanise the voters, the party is now whipping up sentiment against a bureaucratic decision by the Election Commission (EC) that makes it look like a BJP-versus-all election.

“The outcome of this election will be miraculous. That is why everyone else has ganged up against us,” said BJP chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad.

To drive home the point, BJP leaders — including about half-a-dozen former Cabinet ministers — dared the EC with protests on the streets in Delhi and Varanasi, an angry memorandum and repeated statements.

“By condoning the Returning Officer’s stand on ‘No-Modi Rally’ in Varanasi city, the Election Commission has used the security card to prevent Narendra Modi’s right to campaign in the constituency. If you can’t ensure security, don’t hold polls in the country,” said Jaitley in an almost intimidating tone in his blog.

Other parties labelled it as a move to polarise voters. BSP chief Mayawati was the most candid, referring to the protests as “drama” created to divide voters on communal lines.

“Elections are still to be held in 18 seats in which BJP and SP stalwarts Narendra Modi and Mulayam Singh are contesting from Varanasi and Azamgarh. Despite playing caste and communal cards, the position of these parties is progressively deteriorating. Therefore, they have started enacting a new drama and conspiracy in Varanasi from yesterday,” Mayawati told reporters in Lucknow.

“They are doing this to give a Hindu-Muslim colour to elections in the remaining seats to take political mileage,” she alleged, adding that the religious programme of Ganga puja was planned by the BJP (in Varanasi) for political gains, “in connivance” with the SP.

According to the CPI(M)’s Sitaram Yechury, the BJP’s rallies are an effort to “whip up communal tensions” in the region.

“Don’t try and whip up communal frenzy hoping it will give you electoral gains in the last phase of the election,” he said here today. He further said the BJP must raise its differences in a dialogue with the EC.