After PM Modi Files Nomination From Varanasi, There’s An Abrupt Display Of Strength
Following a spectacular six-kilometer roadshow last evening, Prime Minister Narendra Modi filed his nomination for the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday morning. Accompanying him was a phalanx of prominent figures from the Bharatiya Janata Party and its alliance partners, including party chief JP Nadda, home minister Amit Shah, defense minister Rajnath Singh, chief minister of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde, and chief minister of Meghalaya Conrad Sangma. Chief of the Rashtriya Lok Dal Jayant Chaudhary, leader of the Lok Janshakti Party Chirag Paswan, leader of Apna Dal (Sonelal) Anupriya Patel, and Om Prakash Rajbhar of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party were among the alliance partners present.
On his way to file his paperwork this morning, Mr. Modi stopped at the Kaal Bhairav Temple and prayed at the famous Dashashwamedh Ghat on the Ganges River in the presence of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. “My relationship with my Kashi is amazing, inseparable, and incomparable… it cannot be expressed in words,” he remarked prior to going to the temple. Following the filing of his paperwork, Mr. Modi visited the Rudraksh Convention Centre in the city and spoke with party officials. The Prime Minister remarked, during his roadshow on Monday, “The love and blessings my family members of Kashi showed during the road show became an unforgettable moment in my life.”
Mr. Modi is running for a third term in a row from the BJP stronghold. The party has won this seat eight times since 1991, with the only other person to unseat the monopoly being RK Mishra of the Congress in 2004. On June 1, Varanasi will cast ballots in this election’s seventh and final round. Mr. Modi’s victory margin in the 2019 election was around 4.8 lakh votes, a significant increase from the 3.72 lakh margin he had five years prior. A high-profile contest took place in Varanasi during the 2014 election between the Prime Minister and Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, who secured slightly more than 20% of the vote in his first election in the BJP stronghold.
This time (on paper), Ajay Rai of the Congress is the PM’s opponent. In 2019, Mr. Rai ran for office and received 1.52 lakh votes, an increase in his vote share of 7.04%. Approximately 75% of Varanasi’s population is Hindu. Twenty percent of people are Muslims. Only 0.7% of people are thought to be from Scheduled Castes, and 10% are thought to be Scheduled Tribes. The population is divided 65 percent rural and 35 percent urban.
