Lucknow: Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a massive show of strength in Varanasi on Thursday, a day prior to filing his nomination for this Lok Sabha seat. Incidentally, the Congress party also chose this day to announce that Ajay Rai, the party candidate who was second runner-up in the 2014 election, will be the contender this time, too, thus effectively silencing reports that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, party leader and in-charge of eastern UP, could be contesting from Varanasi.
The possibility of a high-profile clash in Varanasi, on the lines of the Modi-Arvind Kejriwal contest in 2014, was thus dashed as the Samajwadi Party had earlier announced the name of Shalini Yadav as the joint candidate for the SP-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance.
The suspense over Priyanka’s possible foray was in fact started by Congress itself some weeks ago when Priyanka had asked a group of women at a meeting whether she should contest from Varanasi. The reports had sparked the possibility of a high-profile contest that could have reinforced Priyanka’s image as a serious contender, and Rahul too had kept up the ruse, saying “let there be some suspense for now.”
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On her part, Priyanka had left it to the party to take a call. What the party president – her brother Rahul – has finally decided, has the potential to embarrass the party campaign in the coming days. Already, BJP supporters have started taking a dig at the Congress for developing cold feet at fielding Priyanka against Modi. On his part, Modi arrived in Varanasi after a hectic round of electioneering in Darbhanga in Bihar and Banda in UP’s Bundelkhand region.
His roadshow started a little after 3 pm from the gate of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and continued through the main thoroughfares, taking more than four hours to cover a distance of 7 km. Accompanying him were many Union ministers, BJP president Amit Shah, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, UP BJP president Mahendra Nath Pandey and others.
Decorated vehicles, welcome gates and showering of flower petals marked the roadshow and hundreds of people lined up both sides of the route and could also be seen on rooftops of houses to catch a glimpse of Modi who stood atop an open vehicle. He acknowledged the greetings and chants of the people with folded hands and waves, and throwing back flower petals at the crowd.
Leaders of parties allied to the NDA are expected to be present when Modi files his nomination tomorrow (Friday 26 April.) The decision by the party not to field Priyanka appeared to have dampened the spirits of local Congress supporters as they were looking forward to a high-profile clash in this city.
The possibility of a triangular contest with Ajay Rai from the Congress and a littleknown Shalini Yadav has diluted the intensity of the contest from Varanasi. Shalini is the daughter-in-law of late Shyamlal Yadav, a former Congress MP from Varanasi, a former Deputy Chairperson of Rajya Sabha, and also a former Union minister.
She was the mayoral candidate of the Congress from Varanasi in 2017 local body elections, and joined the SP earlier this week. In the 2014 election, Modi had won the seat with 5.81 lakh votes while Arvind Kejriwal came second with 2.09 lakh votes, Ajay Rai of the Congress had stood third with 75,614 votes and the SP and BSP had managed 45,291 and 60,579 votes respectively.
During the course of the day, Priyanka herself participated in a roadshow in Jhansi. She also addressed meetings in Jhansi and Orai. Rahul, on the other hand, addressed meetings in many places in Rajasthan. Varanasi is scheduled to go to polls in the seventh and last round on May 19.
Some notable contenders include Tej Bahadur Yadav, the former constable in the BSF who was dismissed from service after alleging poor quality of food, retired judge of Calcutta High Court Justice CS Karnan who was the first sitting judge to be convicted for contempt by the Supreme Court and a group of disgruntled farmers from Tamil Nadu.
Chandra Shekhar Azad, the Bhim Army chief and a young, emerging Dalit leader, had also announced some time ago that he would contest from Varanasi, but a few days later he said he had decided against it.
