Life & Beyond : MAY 10: LAST DAY OF CAMPAIGNING IN VARANASI

The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Sunday, 11 May 2014

MAY 10: LAST DAY OF CAMPAIGNING IN VARANASI

GENERAL ELECTIONS 2014

The last day of campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi saw three road-shows apart from the routine political events.

Candidates from other parties (than Congress, BJP and AAP) continued with their campaign. 42 candidates are in fray including Kailash Chaurasia from the Samajwadi Paty and Vijay Jaiswal from the Bahujan Samaj Party. Though insignificant for the outcome, it was good for the SP candidate’s morale that he had road-show by Akhilesh Yadav on the last day of campaigning.

On follow-up developments, the BJP pitched up its rhetoric against the Election Commission and the Varanasi district administration for allowing rallies of Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav to pass through Beniabagh while denying Modi for the same.

Before it, the Election Commission appointed a special poll observer for Varanasi. The move is being seen as resulting from the pressure mounted by the BJP coupled with the Election Commissioner HS Brahma’s stand criticising the Election Commission on the issue of denial of permission to Modi’s election rallies in Varanasi on May 8. The EC raid on the BJP’s office in Varanasi today only added to the bitterness.

On road-shows, the day began with Rahul Gandhi’s road-show that was less of a solidarity show for the Congress candidate from Varanasi, Ajai Rai, and more of a tit-for-tat reply to Narendra Modi’s election rally in Amethi that saw a huge gathering.

On campaigning parameters, Rahul’s road-show was successful as was Akhilesh Yadav’s later in day and Kejriwal’s a day earlier. Both road-shows of the day were strategically planned to supply the supporters to the rallies from the different densely populated Muslim localities en-route.

And this strategy coupled with the local support of Ajai Rai and the Samajwadi Party did work to gather enough momentum to bring enough people to the two road-shows though some reports say Muslims did not enthusiastically participated in Akhilesh Yadav’s road-show (advantage Kejriwal?).

Then AAP held another road-show in the later half of the day which Arvind Kejriwal could not join due to bad health. Kejriwal did hold an election meeting in the Pandeypur area of the city in the first half of the day.

But, in totality, these road-shows were no match to Modi’s massive show of strength in his road-show on May 8. As even the road-show had no permission, he is now facing allegations of violating the Section 144.

The last day of campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi concluded with events adding to the high voltage political drama that started unveiling in the religious and spiritual capital of India on May 5 when Narendra Modi held an election rally in Amethi.