Electoral Battle in Four Key Constituencies of East UP

Varanasi, Rae Bareli Azamgarh and Amethi are the four important parliamentary seats fall in Easter Uttar Pradesh. These constituencies have become important; not because they are anyway different from other constituencies of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. They have become important because four important leaders of the country namely; Mr. Narendra Modi, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, and Mr. Rahul Gandhi have been contesting election from these seats. Mr. Narendra  Modi has jumped for the first time in the parliamentary election from Varanasi. He has electrified the election campaign not only in Varanasi but also in most of the constituencies of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Although Modi wave is sweeping across the country, yet its effect is being felt with a greater intensity in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In fact, the very purpose of Mr. Modi to contest election from Varanasi is to send a signal that Uttar Pradesh will again get the honor of having the Prime Minster of India from Uttar Pradesh.

On the another hand it is an accepted fact that if the Congress led UPA is again voted to power Mr. Rahul Gandhi will certainly become the Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi being the President of the oldest party, the Congress party, will continue to enjoy the place of honor in the country. Similarly, when Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav has thrown himself in the electoral fray from Azamgarh with the intention was to retain most of the seats in Uttar Pradesh. His Samajwadi Party is in power for the last more than two years after throwing the Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati out of power. Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav has himself held many important posts like; three times Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and former Defense Minister of India. His performance as the Chief Minister or the Defense Minister of India has been lackluster. He is bereft any vision for the development or even to the modern ideas but he is certainly apragmatic politician. He is rather known for following the outdated philosophy as practiced and preached by the late Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia. His socialistic thoughts boil down to casteism. It may be said that he has neither any depth in economics and political science nor any sparks or brilliance of administration. Mulayam Singh and most of his followers owe their rise in politics to pure casteism and uncouth behavior in public life. He has passed on his baton to his son Akhilesh Yadav who is an utterly hopeless man, more known as a nincompoop than the bubbling energetic or dynamic Chief Minister of the biggest state of India, which is bigger than most of the European countries.

Mulayam Singh Yadav is again pinning his hope to win the election because of caste and the equation of Muslim Yadav. However, this time the BSP, his main rival party in Uttar Pradesh has fielded Mr. Shah Alam who is also known as Guddu Zamali against Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav in Azamgarh. Therefore, there is no possibility of his getting the support of the bulk of the Muslim community.

Mr. Guddu Zamali’s story has been of rages to reaches. This man was doing some petty job in Mumbai but he earned good amount of money by foul means. He got ticket of the BSP by sheer dint of money to contest assembly election and was elected. Developed proximity with Mayawati and even became a minister in her government. It became the gateway to earn huge amount of money. He is said to be the business partner of the brother of Ms Mayawati. He has good control over the Muslims of Azamgarh because he has been generously contributing to fundamentalist Muslim organisations and Madarsas of entire Uttar Pradesh. He is also big developer and the chairperson of Poorvanchal Group. He has filed an affidavit before the Election Officer of Azamgarh claim to have the asset of more than 400 crores.

The third candidate from Azamgarh is Mr. Rama Kant Yadav who is also a sitting Lok Sabha Member of BJP from Azamgarh. He too does not have any respectable record of a social worker his history is full of gunda activities many innocent citizens and officers posted in the district must have suffered because of his antisocial activities. The Congress candidate is insignificant and he is not going to cut any ice. Therefore, the fight in Azamgarh is bound to be triangular.

Yadavas are a dominant caste in Azamgarh. However, they appear to be divided between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rama Kant Yadav. If Mulayam Singh Yadav had not thrown himself into the electoral ring, most of the Yadav votes must have gone to Mr. Rama Kant Yadav. Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav would certainly be able to get a good chunk of Yadav and Muslim votes but if Muslims go for tactical voting and show their inclination towards Shah Alam @ Guddu Zamali, then the situation of Mulayam Singh Yadav will become precarious.

Mr. Rama Kant Yadav of BJP has the advantage of being a local person. He has won many elections on the ticket of different parties like; Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samajwadi Party and BJP. This time he has got an added advantage of Modi wave. If he is able to get the sizable number of Yadav votes, then he is assured of getting the Brahmi, Bhumihar, Rajput, Baniya and backward caste votes consisting of Sonkars, Kumhars, Naies, Rajbhars etc. No wonder he may emerge as the winner. Moreover, if he trounces Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav then he will be known as the giant killer.

Mr. Shah Alam @ Guddu Zamali may not get all the votes of his own Muslim community but he can certainly rest upon the votes of the scheduled castes. Ms Mayawati, in fact, has the unbelievable grip over the scheduled castes and they constitute more than 22% votes of Uttar Pradesh. In Azamgarh their number may be higher than the average of Uttar Pradesh. Thus, Mr. Guddu Zamali is giving a very tough fight to Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr. Rama Kant Yadav.

When Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav filed his nomination from Azamgarh, there was euphoria in the Samajwadi Party and it was said that his victory was forgone conclusion. However, as the time has passed by, the situation has become rather clear and if anybody is going to win the election from Azamgarh among from these three candidates, the margin of victory will not be very high. But if Mulayam Singh Yadav loses the election then it will be very heavy set back to him and his party. His party will hardly have the moral right to rule in Uttar Pradesh and his son may have to lose his Chief- Ministership. There is a rumour that if Samajwadi Party does not fair well in the Lok Sabha elections he may assume the post of the Chief Minister replacing his son, who was foisted upon the State of Uttar Pradesh.

As far as the Varanasi is concerned, there is hardly any doubt about the decisive victory of Mr. Narendra  Modi. Varanasi is the new name of the old Kashi and Banaras of the yester years. There are few cities in India, which have many names, and Varanasi is one of them. If you go to Banaras Hindu University, you fill find that in Devnagri script the name of the University is written as Kashi Hindu Vishwavidyalaya. Kashi is immortalized for many things but the foremost among them all is that it is a place of Lord Vishwanath. It is also known as Nagari (city) of Baba Vishwanath. It is said to be the capital of Bhagwan Shankar. Here the river Ganges flows in the shape of the crescent moon. Holy Ganga has originated from the tangled tuft of Lord Shiva; and the crescent moon shines on His head and that is why; the Ganges has obtained the highest respect in Varanasi. Lacs of people take holy dip in the sacred river Ganga round the year. Thousands of old men and women come to Banaras and live there to die. They wait for their death because the belief is that a person who dies in Kashi will straightway go to heaven. Death in Kashi is guarantee to Swarga.  Those who do not die in Varanasi they certainly like to be cremated at Manikarnika Ghat of Banaras. They feel that the cremation at Manikarna Ghat will provide a confirmed in the heaven. Still more who have not been lucky to be cremated in Kashi, they wish that their ashes should be immersed in the holy waters of river Ganga at Varanasi, which will also enable them to get the heaven.

Only two decades ago, Banaras had the rare distinction of being a city with three Universities namely; Banaras Hindu University, Kashi Vidya Peeth and Sampurnanand Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya. Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, the veteran freedom fighter and Hindu philosopher was the founder of the Banaras Hindu University. He afforded the rare opportunity to Mahatma Gandhi to share the dias with Viceroy of India at the time of laying of foundation stone of Banaras Hindu University. The meeting was presided over by no less a person than Anny Besant. Mahatama Gandhi, who was not a Mahatma till then and was still a Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi used the opportunity to the full to castigate the servile Indian rulers and the British Raj. He chastised the Rajas and Maharajas and looked at them with contempt for behaving like slaves and servants before the British rulers.

Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya’s name will be written in golden letters for relentlessly working for the spread of education in and around Varanasi. Banaras Hindu University is a unique institution in the sense that it has got nearly 100 hostels for the board and lodging of the students, male and female both. This is the one of the biggest residential universities of the world which is has got its own amphitheater, aerodrome, magnificent buildings, tree lined roads and almost all faculties of education, be it Engineering, Medical, Agriculture, Commerce, Astrology, Architecture.Almost all subjects of Humanities and Sciences are taught here. And Malviya ji ensured that this university does not remain to be meant for the regional or local students. A few decades ago one could see hundreds of students coming not only from all parts of India but from the far away countries like America, England, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam, China, Sri Lanka, Tibet and many African countries. Strange though it may sound but it is a fact that Malviya ji brought many Vice-chancellors like C.P. Ramaswami Iyer and Dr. Radhkrishnan as the Vice-Chancellors of the University from down south. There have been many teachers of great fame who came from the places like Assam, Bengal, Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamilnadu. Brilliance and learning were the criteria for entry of brilliant persons from all over the country.

In or around the same time the great freedom fighter Babu Shiv Prasad Gupt founded Kashi Vidhya Peeth, another nationalist university. Babu Shiv Prasad Guta was also the founder of the prestigious Hindi Daily Aaj, which had to be closed down many times during the freedom straggle because it was highly critical of the British Government. Its celebrated editors included Babu Vishnu Rao Paradkar and R. R. Khandilkar, who were not from Hindi speaking area. They were Marathi speaking but their contribution to Hindi journalism was matchless. Another eminent journalist of the Aaj was Vidya Bhaskar and he was a Telugu speaking person. The Aaj newspaper provided a shape to the Hindi journalism in the initial years. Banaras is the place, which gave birth to great Hindi novelist, and story writers like; Munshi Prem Chand, Kashinath Singh, Shiv Prasad Singh and it was home to litterateurs like; Hazari Prasad Divedi, Aacharya Ramchandra Shukla, Babu Shyam Sunder Das, Ayodhya Singh Upadhayay Hariaudh and Jai Shankar Prasad. All these litterateurs have become the invaluable and glorious personalities of Hindi literature. Kashi of olden times was the centre of the learning, devotion, tantra, mantra and scholarship. People from across the world had been coming to Kashi to get the salvation and for scholarly activities. After independence persons like; Dr. Sampurnanand, Dr. Bhagwan Das, Mr. Shiv Prakash ji, Kamla Pati Tripathi, Dr. Tribhuvan Narayan Singh and Lal Bhadur Shastri represented Banaras in various capacities.

The veteran leader of the Bhartiya Janta Parti Mr. Murli Manohar Joshi has vacated the parliamentary seat from where Narendra Modi is contesting. Be that as it may, Murli Manohar Joshi has not be able to do justice to the people of Varanasi during his long stint as the Member of Parliament for ten years from 2004-2014. It will not be off the tangent to say that if he had been fielded again from the same constituency, he would have lost the election very badly. Although there are some people, who say that the new leadership but the fact is that it was a blessing in disguise for him and his prestige has been saved by shifting him from this parliamentary constituency to new parliamentary constituency Kanpur.

As far as Amethi and Rae Bareli Parliamentary, seats are concerned it can be said with good degree of certainty that these two seats will continue to be in the possession of the Gandhi family. There is virtually no contest in Rae Bareli as the main opposition party BJP has put up a candidate who is unknown. Other opposition parties have not fielded any candidate. In Amethi there will be some sparks of contests because two candidates like; Smrity Irani of BJP and Kumar Vishwas of AAP have made this election interesting because of their high profile personality. The visit of Narendra Modi has electrified the atmosphere.

Rahul Gandhi’s younger sister Priyanka Gandhi duly compensates him. She has taken up the cudgel on behalf of her brother, who is traveling across the country being the Vice-President of the Congress Party. The people of the area are deeply obliged to Rahul Gandhi because he keeps on coming over there for two days at the interval of three months. Apart from it, his father the late Rajiv Gandhi and the uncle the late Sanjay Gandhi had nursed this constituency. And that is the reason people of the area feel obliged to Gandhi family. There is therefore, hardly any doubt about his victory from Amethi.

The most important election therefore, has revolved round is Varanasi. There is an excitement all over India on the seat of Varanasi. Everybody is looking towards Varanasi. The people who were disenchanted with arrogance and non- performance of Murli Manohar Joshi have got hugely attracted towards Narendra Modi. His victory is beyond doubt. Now everybody will have to guess the margin of the victory with the nearest rival. The person who has been put up by the Congress Party is Mr. Ajay Rai, a local MLA of the Congress Party. Mr. Ajay Rai was two times BJP MLA from the same area. He switched over to Congress Party when BJP denied him the ticket. It is interesting to know that he is the younger brother of the late Krishnanand Rai, who was the BJP MLA from Varanasi. A former MLA Mr. Mukhtar Ansari murdered the late Krishnanand Rai in Varanasi allegedly. Mr. Mukhtar Ansari has floated a new party but earlier he was in the Samajwadi Party and with the Bahujan Samaj Party. This time he is contesting election from the predominantly Muslim constituency of Ghosi. It can be said to be the quirk of fate that a person who is undergoing jail for the murder of the brother of the Congress candidate in Varanasi has extended his support to the younger brother of the killed Krishnanand Rai. It is rightly said that there is no morality in the politics the only criteria is the self-interest. Politician can stoop to any level to serve his or her own interest.

Mr. Arvind Kejarival , the leader is also in the fray from Varanasi but he may  possibly be not able put up a tough fight to Modi because of many reasons. Let us see what happens.