As expected, the contesting of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from holy city of Varanasi not only helped the party perform its record well but also virtually sweeps Purvanchal (eastern UP) as well as adjoining constituencies in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. In this belt of eastern UP where the party had won maximum seven seats out of 12 in Varanasi, Azamgarh and Vindyachal (Mirzapur) divisions, virtually made a clean sweep, losing just one seat, winning 11 including one seat by it NDA alliance Apna Dal.
Undoubtedly, it was Modi ‘wave’ as well as willingness of people to see a change that helped the BJP do such record performance which was even not seen during its peak time of Ram Temple Movement and when it contested under leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Earlier best performance of BJP was seen in 1996 when the party had claimed seven seats out of 12. Since 1996 elections, the party had lost its popularity generated after Ram Temple movement and by the last assembly elections in 2012, it became virtually a barren land for the party. In 2009 lok Sabha elections party had won just two seats of Varanasi and Azamgarh, the two seats which became high-profile one with the contesting of Narendra Modi and Samajvadi Party (SP) supremo. The presence of two bigwigs had attracted the attention of entre country.
But this time, the entire region was engulfed into saffron colours. Except, Azamgarh, all the seats were claimed by the BJP including one of AD as Annupriya Patel won the seat from mirzapur parliamentary seat.The party’s strategy to bring Modi to contest from holy city of Varanasi proved fruitful with the upsurge of saffron forces. The rise of Modi was an indication of weakening of caste-based vote-bank politics which dominated in this region in recent years. Though Modi could not visit the city frequently due to his busy political assignments across the country, he succeeded in helping the party candidates to perform well registering victories with thumping margins. In most of the constituencies the margin of wins was good.
During the last phase of campaigning Modi visited some constituencies to address meetings and despite scorching heat the meeting were successful. Thousands of supporters reached in outskirts of the city at Rohania, when he addressed a meeting in afternoon hours. His all visits to Varanasi has helping in fanning the wave in entire Purvanchal. First time Modi visited Varanasi to offer prayer at Kashi Vishwanath temple and then address a ‘Vijay Shankh’ rally near Raja Talab, about 20 kms from here on Varanasi-Allahabad road and seeing the rush of several lakh supporters there, the party was forced to re-plan its strategies. Due to rush, the movement on the national highways was virtually halted for hours. Then the sitting BJP MP of Varanasi Dr Murli Manohar Joshi was shifted to Kanpur and Modi was brought to this holy city from Gujarat.
Second time, Modi came here on April 24 to file his nomination papers and despite restrictions not to go long by roads from district administration, his road-show saw flow of lakhs of people. The enthusiasm shown by the supports was rarely seen in the city in recent past. According to rivals, it was planned gathering by spending huge money but the Banarasis who themselves turned out there knew the reality. And two days ago before the campaigning came to an end he was denied to address a rally at Benia Bagh by the administration and then he took out ‘road-show’ which changed the situation as local people thronged the roads in lakhs while motorcade of Modi was passing through the city roads, going to his central election office near Rathyata from BHU Gate. It was a different ‘road-show’, contrary to others like Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav where the starting point rush could be managed but the stream of people seen on the roads was different.
The enthusiasm shown by the Banarasis was en-cashed by the BJP effectively using their pictures frequently in its advertisements. And that strategy paid the party a rich dividend. In the initial stage, the party was seen virtually lagging behind in most of the constituencies as there was expectation that the main fight would be between Samajvadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as they had claimed six and five seats respectively in 2009.
BJP won just four, two each in Varanasi and Gorakhpur regions of Purvanchal while Congress all its three from Gorakhpur region. This time, due to presence of Modi in Varanasi, the saffron forces fought strongly in almost all the seats in the region and the results proved that helping Modi to become the next prime minister.