Jittery BJP banks on Modi blitz to win over Varanasi

The BJP is anxiously awaiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming three-day campaign blitzkrieg in Varanasi to balance the skewed political equations in his constituency.

BJP sources in Varanasi said the PM is expected to reach Varanasi on March 4, four days prior to polling on March 8, and campaign in the city for the next three days. He lands in Babatpur airport on the morning of March 4 and is expected to ride towards Godolia, Gyan Vapi and participate in the Vishwanath Rudrabhishek. He will halt at the Banaras Hindu University before flying back to Delhi.

On March 5, the PM is expected to return and address a public meeting at DAV College. “He will probably stay the night,” said a BJP office-bearer. On March 6, which is the last day of campaigning before the seven-phase elections come to an end, the PM will address a public meeting in Rohania, an Assembly segment that falls in the PM’s parliamentary constituency.

The reason for Modi’s focused campaign is the BJP’s fear that the NDA will probably not be able to win all the five Assembly segments in the PM’s constituency.

The Varanasi parliamentary constituency consists of the Assembly segments of Rohania, Varanasi North, Varanasi South, Varanasi Cantonment and Sevapuri. Incumbent MLAs in Rohania and Sevapuri belong to the Samajwadi Party, while Varanasi North, South and Cantonment were won by the BJP in 2012.

While the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh campaign has picked up momentum in the past ten days and its social engineering project – weaning away non-Jatav Dalits from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and non-Yadav OBCs from Samajwadi Party (SP) – is bearing fruit on the ground, it is Varanasi, the PM’s seat, that has become cause for anxiety. In all the assembly segments falling in the PM’s seat, the BJP is facing a tough contest for a variety of reasons.

In Varanasi South, for instance, sitting MLA Shyamdeo Roychowdhury aka Dada, a seven-term winner and widely respected local stalwart, was denied a ticket by the party. Relative newcomer Nilkanth Tiwari has been fielded instead. To make matters worse, the SP-Congress alliance has a formidable candidate in former MP Rajesh Mishra. Mishra is a former president of the BHU Students’ Union and has campaigned vigorously. Even BJP insiders believe the SP-Congress alliance may not have worked well anywhere else, but in Varanasi South, the coordination and chemistry is smooth.

“This city will not forgive the humiliation of Shyamdeo Roychowdhury. He has won from here when the BJP had no prospects of ever coming to power. And now when the party is ascendant, you discard a veteran like him,” says local resident Ashok Kanti Chakravarty, who believes the BJP leadership’s “arrogance” will hurt them.

Similarly, in Varanasi North, the BJP is facing rebel candidate Sujit Singh Tikku, former president of the BJP’s Kisan Morcha and an intrepid campaigner from the Rajput community. The party has fielded sitting MLA Ravindra Jaiswal against whom there is strong anti-incumbency.

In Rohania, a seat with a considerable population of Kurmis, the BJP has fielded Surendra Narain Singh. The sitting MLA from this seat is the SP’s Mahendra Patel, who has been fielded again. The BJP would have expected to sail through considering its alliance with Kurmi party Apna Dal. But Apna Dal’s split faction, the one headed by the late Sone Lal Patel’s wife Krishna Patel, has put up Krishna Patel from this constituency. If the Patel vote is divided, the BJP’s position gets weakened.

There is a tough contest in Varanasi Cantonment, where the Congress has fielded Anil Shrivastava against Saurabh Shrivastava, the son of sitting BJP MLA Jyotsana Shrivastava. Besides the local BJP unit’s resistance to “dynasty politics” manifesting in this seat, Anil Shrivastava is a popular opponent who had put up a good fight in the 2012 election as well.

Sevapuri is witnessing local resistance to the BJP-backed Apna Dal candidate Nil Ratan Patel. His opponent is the SP’s sitting MLA Surendra Singh Patel. But the BJP’s challenge here comes from Vibhuti Narain Rai, a Bhumihar stalwart who is the BJP’s rebel candidate from this seat.

“All of this can be set right only by the PM who enjoys the support of the people,” hopes a local BJP worker.