GENERAL ELECTIONS 2014
The last day of campaigning for
the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi began with Rahul Gandhi’s road-show
continuing the series of high voltage political drama that started unveiling in
the religious and spiritual capital of India on May 7 when Amethi voted in the
8th phase of the polls.
Today’s road-show of Rahul Gandhi
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 event in
Amethi that drew huge crowd there.
Before Narendra Modi’s Amethi
move, Ajai Rai was sounding like a lost voice on his demand for campaigning by
the Nehru-Gandhi family and other top brass of the Congress party in the city.
No one paid attention to him.
But Modi’s Amethi rally left the
Congress party no option but to take charge directly against Modi in Varanasi
in order to look and sound unfazed by the Modi Factor. And Rahul was chosen to
lead the front for obvious reasons.
Anyway, given the pro-Modi
sentiments in Varanasi and an intensive campaigning by Arvind Kejriwal,
especially for the minority votes, the route of Rahul’s rally was chosen that
covered areas with dense Muslim population, so as to move and mobilize the
crowd to the road-show, from Peeli Kothi/Gol Gadda area (Muslim dominated
localities) on the outskirts of the city (on the Rajghat side) to the Lanka
gate of Banaras Hindu University. Then there were other Muslim dominated
localities, Beniabagh, Nai Sadak and Madanpura, en-route to maintain the
momentum.
And this strategy coupled with
Ajai Rai’s local support did work to gather enough momentum to bring enough people
to Rahul’s road-show. But, in totality, it was like the crowds seen during
Kejriwal’s road-show yesterday, successful on election campaigning parameters,
but no match to Modi’s massive show of strength in his road-show on May 8 that
was technically not a road-show given the fact he was denied permission for the
same and is now facing allegations of violating the Section 144.
But the success of Rahul’s
road-show raises the obvious point - if not too little, it is certainly too
late. Had it been held earlier, could it have helped Ajai Rai and Congress to
position better against a formidable rival whose win from Varanasi is written
beyond any doubt? Ajai Rai will be pinning his hope on the show now to help him
become the Number 2 in the constituency.
Meanwhile, the routine political
events continued. Other candidates continued with their campaigning. 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. The Election Commission appointing
a special poll observer for Varanasi is being seen as resulting from the
pressure mounted by the BJP coupled with Election Commissioner HS Brahma’s
stand criticising the Election Commission stand on the issue of Modi’s election
events in Varanasi on May 8.
Then, further in the day - the
day has in store two other big political events – a road-show by Akhilesh Yadav
and another road-show by Arvind Kejriwal.
While the Akhilesh’s road-show
has begun, reports say Kejriwal may not participate in the AAP road-show as he
is not well. He did hold an election meeting in the Pandeypur area of the city
in the first half of the day but his health may not permit him for the
road-show before the campaigning ends at 5 PM.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
