Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal now has the right opportunity to dominate the media space which he has been accusing Narendra Modi of buying out. The opportunity has been provided by Modi himself after he was declared the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate for Varanasi in the upcoming election.
On Sunday, Kejriwal confirmed while speaking at a rally in Bangalore's Freedom Park that he would contest against Modi in Varanasi.
"The party has asked me to fight against Modi. I'm not here to win or lose. I will go to Varansi on 23 March and hold a rally. If people ask me to fight, I'll fight," he said.
He will address the AAP rally in Varanasi on 23 March and formally announce his candidature. Incidentally, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will hold a rally in Pratapgarh, about 150 km from Varanasi a day earlier. However, in Varanasi the excitement is presently more about Modi's candidature as was evident from the celebrations at different parts of the city after the news reached the city late on Saturday night. BJP workers and supporters gathered at street corners and at the ghats of the Ganga and celebrated with fireworks, crackers and slogans. The celebrations, coming two days before Holi, reflected the prevalent mood among BJP workers and sympathisers: Modi was their choice and not the incumbent MP Murli Manohar Joshi.
The influential community of Pandas and priests in the holy city is also jubilant at Modi's nomination and are confident that Modi will win with a big margin.
Several small rallies and functions were held to celebrate Modi's candidature even on Sunday as well even as news television crews descended on Varanasi to capture the essence of the tradition-bound city.
While BJP state spokesman Vijay Pathak says Modi will register an emphatic, record win from Varanasi, the entry of Arvind Kejriwal into the fray has made the contest interesting.
Modi's name for Varanasi was finalised after weeks of speculation and in the end it took the BJP central election committee a marathon ten-hour meeting to make the announcement. Murli Manohar Joshi was known to be reluctant to vacate the seat for Modi. This despite Joshi having won the 2009 election by beating Mukhtar Ansari of the BSP by a margin of a mere 18,000 votes in spite of it being a communally polarized election.
Local BJP workers had been rooting for Modi, and several hoardings, banners and posters had come up in the city urging Modi to contest from Varanasi. It is learnt that after his tours of eastern UP, Amit Shah, BJP's state in-charge for Uttar Pradesh, had indicated that Varanasi was an ideal seat for Modi and his candidature from there will have a positive impact for BJP in at least 33 seats in eastern UP and the adjoining region of Bihar. Out of these, the BJP could win only seven in the 2009 election.
At the moment, Kailash Chaurasiya, an MLA from Mirzapur, is the Samajwadi Party candidate from Varanasi, while Vijay Jaiswal is the BSP candidate. However, the most formidable candidate is Mukhtar Ansari, now from the Qaumi Ekta Dal.
The Congress has not yet officially announced its candidate but the name of Ajay Rai, who stood third in the 2009 Lok Sabha election, has been doing the rounds.
But with the emergence of Kejriwal, it is learnt that the non-BJP parties may arrive at an unofficial understanding to ensure that only one candidate - be it Kejriwal or any other - takes on Modi.
"The attempt now would be to take advantage of reverse polarisation and avoid division of anti-BJP votes," Mahesh Dwivedi, a political science analyst in Varanasi, said.
It is already rumoured that the Samajwadi Party might support Ansari as per this understanding. Earlier, Ansari had sought a ticket from the Samajwadi Party to contest from Varanasi but the party leadership had turned it down. A rivalry between the Congress's Rai and Ansari already exists and the latter can't expect any support from the Congress with Rai as its candidate. It could mean the Congress may field a less significant candidate from the seat under this understanding.
The AAP has a district unit in Varanasi but it is not very active since students of BHU, IIT and local medical college have not been enthusiastic about it.
"The student community in general favours Modi over Kejriwal," Mahesh Kumar Srivastava, an educationist associated with a college in Varanasi, claimed.
He said a lot of students felt that Kejriwal would contest from the seat not to win but only to reinforce his image as a giant-killer who downed Sheila Dikshit in Delhi.
"If he loses, he can always blame the media for it," a journalist from Varanasi, who did not wish to be identified, said.
However, the journalist also said that Ansari was unlikely to step aside from the contest, as he would like to take sole advantage of the Muslim polarisation against Modi. The Varanasi electorate comprises about 77 per cent Hindus and 18 per cent Muslims. In that case, it could become a triangular contest between Modi, Kejriwal and Ansari.
In adjoining Bihar, former chief minister Lalu Prasad has been quick to dismiss suggestions that Modi's candidature from Varanasi will have any impact in Bihar.
"No communal person can win from Varanasi," he said in Patna.
For a city considered the holiest by millions of Hindus worldwide, Varanasi attracts a record number of visitors from all over the world, and is considered one of the oldest living cities in the world. Now it is sure to become the most favoured destination for the world media as well, as was evident from the hordes of mediapersons and TV crew that descended upon Varanasi.
"All of us are suddenly in demand, with mediapersons from all over calling us up to get a reality check on Varanasi," chuckled a journalist with an English daily in Varanasi.
All eyes, he said, were on 23 March when Kejriwal makes his appearance in the city.
The other parties in Varanasi may give Kejriwal a clear shot at Modi.
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