Arvind Kejriwal will lose to Modi but he has won Varanasi's heart

Varanasi: Mohammad Hakim stood outside the kacheri, district magistrate’s office among a group of people, most of whom were wearing Aam Aadmi caps. They were all waiting for Arvind Kejriwal to arrive to file his nomination papers. Kejriwal’s road show was still about one kilometre away and was expected to reach its destination anytime after 2 pm. There were about two-three hundred people standing under the shade of some trees, chatting and debating. The discussions would sometimes would get heated when the odd Narendra Modi supporter provoked them with a sharp comment or referred to the AAP leader as a ‘Bhagoda’ from Delhi. Then two persons with loads of Aam Admi trademark caps bearing the slogan Hume Chahiye Swaraj, written both in Hindi and Urdu arrived at the kacheri. During the rush of distributing caps, they offer one to Mohammad Hakim. The crowds gathered there cajole him to accept and wear it. But he takes out one of his pocket, saying, “I already have it. Why should I necessarily wear it?” [caption id=“attachment_1493627” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kejriwal’s roadshow in Varanasi: PTI[/caption] Then he expressed his dilemma. “I have been a cycle (Samajwadi Party symbol) supporter. I don’t know who to support. This time the Samajwadi party has put up such a weak candidate that I don’t think he will give a fight to Modi. That leaves me with a choice between Ajay Rai (Congress) and Arvind Kejriwal. My whole community is faced is with this problem.” He and some others with him, however, indicated that for now Kejriwal could be their favoured choice over Rai. He then points to some Muslims in the other crowd,  and said that while some of them had decided to support AAP, others  had come to the kacheri to assess Kejriwal’s strength before making a final call. Most of the others in the crowd were very vocal and aggressive Kejriwal supporters. “We don’t want either the BJP or the Congress, its time for another alternative”, was the common refrain. Kejriwal’s persona of ‘honest politician’ and his consistent targeting of Modi and Rahul for alleged corporate politics has worked amongst a section of people. “He at least is honest, wears the same shirt for days and talks about ending corruption”, said a young boy who identified himself as Rajaram and claimed that he had come to be a part of Kejriwal’s constituency from Hardoi, a constituency far away from Varanasi. He is instantly cheered by the crowd. One of the excited supporters there, even suggested that Kejriwal had a good chance of becoming Prime Minister because the Third Front would have no other choice but him. When Kejriwal arrives in his jeep, he is buoyed by the numbers, the sea of white caps and chants of Vande Mataram. His immediate target is Modi and his helicopter hopping politics. He tries to provoke local sensitivity by drawing an accessibility versus inaccessibility comparison between him and Modi. As Kejriwal continued attacking Modi, a person standing quipped that “he must wait till tomorrow (hen Modi files his nomination) to see what a road show means and how massive it can get. Nothing will move in the city of Varanasi. The numbers that you see here are mostly of outsiders, people from outside of Varanasi and outside of UP.” Even before he could finish however, a few AAP supporters got into a heated exchange with him. Kejriwal himself admitted that Modi would have a grand show in Varanasi on Thursday but attributed that to money power. He is pitching himself as a poor common man’s politician. The sense that Firstpost got while talking to people in various parts of Varanasi was that AAP’s campaign has picked up in the one week since Kejriwal’s arrival in the city and the withdrawal of Muktar Ansari’s candidature in a bid to not split the anti-Modi vote. He is getting the support of people, who perhaps have been shouted down for years by their more vocal peers or social groups. Its difficult however to point out which group or caste is favouring him because he has never had anything to do with Varanasi in the past. That Kejriwal will lose is almost certain. But the elections in Varanasi are not about victory or defeat. Instead it is more about margins. What will Modi’s majority be? How many votes will he win by? But two things are happening in Kejriwal’s favour. First, he is getting traction among sections of people who are opposed to BJP and Modi but don’t see Congress or Samajwadi Party as a force, which can effectively counter him. This disparate group is looking at Muslims to vote for him to give him respectable numbers. Many in the Muslim community are inclined to vote for him but they are waiting to see how much support he gets from the Hindu community and which social groups will join him. Kejriwal has visited and campaigned in several Muslim areas. Some clerics are also favouring him. Given that Muslims are mostly voting strategically, in a rather aggressively polarised manner to a candidate who can take on the BJP, Varanasi will not be an exception particularly when Narendra Modi is a candidate here. The two lakh plus votes of the community will in the end go to the person who can show the real appetite to take on Modi’s might. Congress’s Ajay Rai is a local MLA and has good reach in the community but his problem lies elsewhere. His party is no longer favoured. Whatever be the end numbers, Kejriwal has succeeded in his strategy. He and his core supporters always knew that he was not in Varanasi to win but to make news and build a strong base for his party in the next elections. Kejriwal’s supporters are happy doing that. A young Rohit Lal who claimed he came from Delhi on his own and didn’t otherwise have any penetration in AAP said, “we may not win but people also remember the one who challenges the mighty."