Note: AAP appears to be an alternative both Congress and BJP. Congress has done many sins since its birth in 1885. It misguided Indians to die in WORLD WAR I and WORLD WAR II wherein officially more than 1.5 lakh Indians soldiers died. Its Nehru incarnation misguided India into war with China. Its Indira incarnation allowed US companies like Union Carbide Corporation to undertake experiments on war chemicals in Bhopal, its Rajiv incarnation emerged as a merchant of death by letting Warren Anderson leave the country in the aftermath of Bhopal disaster, its Narshimha Rao incarnation corrupted MPs with MPLAD scheme and through purchase of MPs from Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and its Sonia-Rahul-Priyanka -Manmohan Singh incarnation colluded with BJP to favour likes of Ambani and Adani by allowing them to pocket 30 lakh crore as part of tax relief etc and caused more than 3 lakh farmers commit suicide. All the key policies be it for water or health or environment which Congress followed were framed by BJP.
Gopal Krishna
The good old fight
Every morning, when Arvind Kejriwal leaves for campaigning from his party’s office in Varanasi’s Shivaji Nagar, the air is already so hot, it almost leaves one stupefied. His car passes by a row of houses where people have put up Bharatiya Janata Party flags on their balconies. On the main road outside, he encounters one of the many giant posters the Congress party has put up in support of its candidate, Ajay Rai. It has Mr. Rai standing in the backdrop of a ghat, his eyes closed, and his hands folded in prayer. He looks like a raffish Zen master.
Gopal Krishna
The good old fight
Every morning, when Arvind Kejriwal leaves for campaigning from his party’s office in Varanasi’s Shivaji Nagar, the air is already so hot, it almost leaves one stupefied. His car passes by a row of houses where people have put up Bharatiya Janata Party flags on their balconies. On the main road outside, he encounters one of the many giant posters the Congress party has put up in support of its candidate, Ajay Rai. It has Mr. Rai standing in the backdrop of a ghat, his eyes closed, and his hands folded in prayer. He looks like a raffish Zen master.
Mr. Kejriwal’s car is escorted by a
police jeep. Behind him is another party car, carrying a few volunteers
who help him negotiate his way through the surge of people. Many people
want to shake hands with him or hand over a piece of paper on which they
have scribbled their grievances. He lets himself be guided in and out
of a gathering, as streamlets of sweat trickle down his sunburnt face.
They sometimes fall on his spectacles which he then wipes clean with the
hem of his untucked half-sleeve shirt. His party cap that he wears all
the time is so heavy with perspiration, it could sink in water.
Supporters and listeners
In
the last few days, the number of people who have attended Mr.
Kejriwal’s public meetings has increased. The crowd that gathers to
listen to him is divided into two groups: people who sit on the chairs
or around them are those who have already decided to vote for him; the
other is of people who stop by, mostly across the road, or those who
peer out of their houses or shops. These are people who are voting for
other parties or are still undecided.
In his
speeches, Mr. Kejriwal tries to get the second group of people to cross
the road. “Some of you may be Narendra Modi supporters. That is fine,
but do hear me out,” he addresses them directly. While he is at it, his
volunteers distribute pamphlets among people. The pamphlet is titled: “Mein Modi ji ke khilaaf chunaav kyun lad raha hun? (Why I am fighting elections against Mr. Modi?)” He repeats most of its content in his speeches. “Modi ji
has sold off Gujarat to industrialists,” he says. One volunteer then
hands over a bunch of documents to him. He lifts them up for everyone to
see. “Documents don’t lie,” he tells the people. He goes on to say how
he had filed an FIR against the industrialist Mukesh Ambani after he
became Delhi’s Chief Minister. He tells them about a letter that Mr.
Modi purportedly wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asking him to
increase the cost of gas.
“I wrote to Mr. Singh,
asking him to keep in abeyance the decision to increase gas prices, but
he never replied. Then we went to the Election Commission, asking them
to put a stay over the increase. They passed orders and that is how we
ensured that you don’t have to bear the rising cost of gas for two
months,” he says. He tells them that increase in gas price will lead to
increase in cost of electricity and food items as well.
“They
may kill us, they may cut us into pieces, but we won’t let them
increase the gas prices,” he shouts. There is a wide applause.
“Mr.
Modi uses Mr. Mukesh Ambani’s helicopter. Rahul Gandhi uses Mr.
Ambani’s helicopter. Whosoever wins, it is clear that Mr. Ambani will
run this country. That is why it is crucial to defeat both Modi ji and Rahul Gandhi,” he says.
At
Pandeypur, in Varanasi city, Ramdeen, who is an employee of Banaras
Hindu University (BHU), gets down from his cycle to listen to Mr.
Kejriwal. In 15 minutes, he has crossed over to the other side where Mr.
Kejriwal speaks. “One thing is there, whatever he says,” he says
looking at Mr. Kejriwal. “It makes sense. He is right.”
In
the last elections, Ramdeen says, he had voted for Mayawati’s
candidate. “But this time, I want to give a chance to the Aam Aadmi
Party,” he mumbles.
Change in perception
On
March 25, when Arvind Kejriwal visited Varanasi and announced his
decision to contest against Mr. Modi, he was ridiculed by BJP
supporters. They threw eggs at him, and ink, and pelted his car with
stones. Many AAP volunteers found their pockets picked. A month later,
on April 23, he filed his nomination for the battle in Varanasi. The
very next day, Mr. Modi filed his nomination, too. The roadshow that he
led was shown live across television channels with many grossly
exaggerating the number of people who took part in it.
Mr.
Kejriwal’s roadshow a day earlier had drawn less people, but it was
significant since the AAP hardly had any cadre in Varanasi. Many people
had turned up from outside Varanasi to lend support to Mr. Kejriwal. But
so had they for Mr. Modi’s show.
After the elections
in Delhi, many senior AAP leaders reached Varanasi to connect with
people. For about a week or so, a senior AAP leader says, the response
was lukewarm. But by the last week of April, it had become clear that
Mr. Kejriwal had managed to secure a foothold in Varanasi.
So, how did this happen?
A part of the BJP’s strategy, say insiders in the local party unit, was to intimidate Mr. Kejriwal and portray him as bhagoda
– a deserter who had quit the Delhi Chief Minister’s post after 49
days. Everywhere they went, Mr. Kejriwal and his associates would be
confronted by abusive BJP supporters who disrupted their meetings. “We
countered them politely by asking them to engage in a discussion with
us,” says Manish Sisodia, a close associate of Mr. Kejriwal. “But they
lacked patience, while it was our strength.”
On April
17, Mr. Kejriwal and others visited the famous Keshav panwala where
some of Mr. Modi’s supporters started to abuse them. Mr. Kejriwal, say
eyewitnesses, threw a garland at them. They reacted by throwing stones.
At this time, the police intervened and escorted Mr. Kejriwal and other
leaders to safety. “One of the BJP supporters climbed atop a wall and
threw a big stone on Mr. Kejriwal’s car,” recalls Rohit Pandey, an AAP
volunteer.
The next day they were connecting with
people in Company Bagh when a group of BJP and Congress supporters began
shouting slogans against them. At one of the ghats, another gang of BJP
supporters began hurling abuses at them. An eyewitness says Mr.
Kejriwal went to them and asked them why they supported Mr. Modi. One of
them replied: because Mr. Modi’s mother lives in a six by six feet
room. Mr. Kejriwal is believed to have replied: “Isn’t it a shame that
while Mr. Modi lives in the Chief Minister’s bungalow, he has not
bothered to call his mother there? My parents live with me.”
AAP
volunteers say two meetings on April 27 made a huge difference in
people’s perception. One was held in the Lanka market where a group of
BJP supports began to shout “Arvind Kejriwal, go back” and “Narendra
Modi zindabad” as soon as Mr. Kejriwal began to speak. He
listened to them patiently and told them he was all for a debate. “Give
me three reasons why Mr. Modi should win,” he asked them.
On
the same day, a sabha was organised in Khojwa area in front of the BJP
mayor’s house. About 2,500 people attended that rally. “We went to meet
the priests,” says Mr. Sisodia. “They told us while they wanted Mr. Modi
to become Prime Minister, in Varanasi they would vote for Mr. Kejriwal
since only he was capable of cleaning up the Ganges and the ghats.”
In
Shivaji Nagar itself, where AAP’s office is located, AAP volunteers say
they have begun to notice a remarkable difference in the attitude of
the people in the colony who are predominantly BJP supporters. “They now
offer us water and tea,” said a volunteer, Akshay Malhotra.
In
his speeches, Mr. Kejriwal always points out that while he had taken a
dip in the Ganges, Mr. Modi chose to take a helicopter even from the
airport to BHU. “Modi ji says he will clean the Ganges like
Gujarat’s Sabarmati river. Do research on Sabarmati on the internet, it
is the third most polluted river in the country,” he says.
He refers to the BJP supporters calling him bhagoda.
“Where did I run away? Did I go to Pakistan? No, I am here,” he says.
He then pulls at the hearts of the Hindu majority. “Bhagwan Ram is
lucky, there was no BJP in his time. Otherwise they would have called
him a bhagoda, too, when he went to the forest.” And some more:
“I came out of the Kashi Vishwanath temple wearing a rudraksh and the
BJP supporters threw eggs on me. Is this Hindu culure? Is this Kashi’s
culture?” And in the end: “Har Har Mahadev” in response to BJP’s “Har Har Modi.” “Some people are chanting Modi ji’s name as if they are on opium. They need to break his spell,” he says.
Mr.
Kejriwal’s sustained campaign has left the BJP worried. The attacks on
AAP supporters have increased. On April 30, a group of students
campaigning against Mr. Modi outside BHU were heckled by BJP supporters.
The group then approached the Lanka police station to file an FIR. They
were still at it when a few journalists received calls from Tajinder
Pal Singh Bagga, a self-proclaimed fan of Mr. Modi, whose party, Bhagat
Singh Kranti Sena, has been in the past responsible for assaulting AAP
leader Prashant Bhushan.
“Go to Lanka police station, our people have stopped anti-Modi campaigners,” he told them. He has been camping in Varanasi.
“We
had expected this in a broad sense, but we never thought the BJP will
lose sense of balance like this,” says the AAP’s Yogender Yadav.
A sense of foreboding
The
violent streak of the BJP supporters has left the old residents of
Varanasi worried. The author Kashinath Singh, whose Hindi novel Kashi ka Assi chronicled
the changing political landscape of Varanasi, says he no longer goes to
Pappu tea stall, close to Assi ghat, that he made famous through his
novel. “It has been taken over by BJP supporters. They won’t say
anything to me, but to people of other ideologies they have begun to
say: Go to Pakistan!” he says.
The people of non-BJP ideologies now frequent another tea stall called Poi ki dukaan. “Here, we have tea like the good old times, we discuss politics, we fight over it, but it never goes ugly because the BJP walas are in a minority,” Mr. Singh says.
Poi ki dukaan is full in the evening, and people assemble here, drinking tea, reading newspapers and debating the current political scenario.
The debate invariably veers towards Mr. Kejriwal.
“Kejriwal is right, the people here seem to be opiated with Modi,” says one.
“Do you think Kejriwal can conjure a miracle?” asks another.
“No miracles are possible with opium,” the first one replies. “It can only induce hallucination.”
rahul.p@thehindu.co.in
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