The holy city of Kashi erupted with joy when BJP’s leadership officially decided to field its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi. It was close to mid-night when party spokesman made this announcement and immediately the city reverberated with the slogans like ‘Har Har Modi- Ghar Ghar Modi’ taking the cue from ‘Har Har Mahadev’ the reverent chant made in the streats of Varanasi to invoke Bhole Baba (lord Shiva). The chant reflects the mindset of the BJP leaders of this politically sensitive State that hold key to country’s political fortune. Party is targeting to win at least 40-plus seats and with this aim leaders announced 53 candidates.
The list was mix of backwards, women, sitting legislators and a few turncoats. The only factor party considered was winnability in selecting candidates. Starting from east to west every 200 km will have a big leader in fray who can influence nearby constituencies. If Uma Bharati is BJP candidate in Jhansi, Murli Manohar Joshi will contest from Kanpur. In lucknow Rajnath Singh is in fray and in Varanasi Narendra Modi is party’s trump card. On the other extreme to Varanasi party has fielded Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur and in between is Deoria where Kalraj Mishra is in fray.
To achieve this combination, party had to make permutation and combination and therefore fielded 10 sitting legislators. Theye are: Hukum Singh (Kairana),, Raghav Pal (Saharanpur), Sarvesh Singh ( Moradabad), Mahesh Sharma ( GB Nagar) , Uma Bharati (Jhansii). Ajay Mishra (Kheri), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur), Savitri Bai Phule (Bahraich), and Nepal Singh MlC-Rampur.