The battle for Varanasi
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 12, 2014 -

It's true that the holy city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh has never been short of admirers and visitors, not just from within the country but also from other part of the globe.

Since time immemorial, people flock to this city located along the bank of Ganges for different reasons and purposes.

If they don't come here for praying or studying religious scriptures, then there is no lack in the number of people who come for shopping or simply for sight seeing.

But the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency which is made up of five Assembly constituencies, namely Varanasi Cantonment, Varanasi North, Varanasi South, Rohaniya and Sevapuri, has never been able to capture the political consciousness of the people and their leaders as it is today.

Switch to any news channel, one thing that we can guarantee is that you would not fail to feel, hear and see the heat of the electoral fight for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

From the intensely competitive and well-attended road-shows carried by Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi on successive days to the electoral tirades among the contesting candidates; from the Election Commission of India (ECI) wielding its baton against everyone for violation of poll code to the BJP's no-holds-barred rhetoric against the election body and from the Congress's local boy Ajai Rai's 'local versus outsider' slogan to counter the electoral rivals to the eyeball grabbing tactics of Kejriwal, Varanasi has even overshadowed other States were the last leg of the 10-phase Lok Sabha elections-2014 is to be held together.

So, why media is giving so much attention to the electoral battle for Varanasi Lok Sabha seat this time? For one, the contest of BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi as well (in addition to his safe seat from Baroda in Gujarat) to confirm re-assertion of Hindutva power as well as politics in the country and the challenge that has come to stop this ambition from such an unexpected quarters in the figure of Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party (APP) is obvious enough to attract the attention of everyone.

Modi may have set out to unseat Congress party from power, but he has to now overcome the challenge put before him by Kejriwal, who has thrown his AAP-Gandhi cap into the electoral ring of Varanasi by breaking the tradition of political parties giving each other's pre-eminent leaders an easy ride to the Parliament.

The daily confrontation between the two has even sidelined the five-time elected MLA Ajai Rai which the Congress party has put in the fray.

While it is now only a matter of few days' wait to know who comes out victorious and who bit the dust in the electoral hustings, one unhealthy trend that has been observed in the media coverage over the electoral fight for Varanasi Lok Sabha seat is blowing out of proportion of everything that the contesting candidates uttered and completely ignoring the real issue of lack of development in the holy city.

Instead of making Varanasi realise its tourism and business potential, politicians in the past have relentlessly focused on realising their selfish political dreams, and sadly, media has only encourage it, this time too.