After Varanasi, AAP volunteers now left 'without sense of purpose'

New Delhi: The elections are over and Sudhanshu Purohit and a few of his friends feel a sudden void in their lives. The end of rigorous campaigning and all the excitement that comes with it, says Purohit, has “left us without a sense of purpose”. [caption id=“attachment_1522909” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AAP’s Varanasi candidate Arvind Kejriwal. Reuters[/caption]Purohit, a student of history from Indore, had landed in Varanasi on 22 April, the day Arvind Kejriwal filed his nomination to contest against BJP’s Narendra Modi. “It’s not that I was ever overtly interested in politics but I just wanted to be a part of the process,” Purohit says. “More than campaigning for or against any particular candidate my motive was to reach out to people to urge them to at least cast their vote,” he adds. However, Purohit and his friends finally came together with local volunteers of the Aam Aadmi Party and took to the streets with them. The experience of campaigning for the AAP was unique for him, so was it for many others who arrived here from across the country. “We had no clue that so many people would arrive in Varanasi to volunteer for the party’s campaigning,” says Prerna Prasad, the campaign coordinator for the AAP in the constituency. According to Prasad, a Delhi resident, going to Varanasi and starting an intense campaign was not an easy task. “The local residents of Varanasi were apprehensive when we started out two months prior to the election,” she says. But the innovative door-to-door campaign and the decision to involve as many local people as possible in it proved a game changing idea, she says. “After a month or so we started the campaign, the participation of locals was beyond our imagination,” she adds. However, the campaigners and volunteers unanimously agree on the point that all the excitement of campaigning came with its bit of crude reality. “The last 20 days were the worst. Not only the work pressure was increasing but also there was a rising threat of attacks on our volunteers from political goons,” says Satyanand, an AAP volunteer and a key figure in the campaign in Varanasi. “Everyday two or three people were getting bashed up by the goons of the local strongmen. It came down to a point when we even thought of abandoning the campaign to save ourselves… But going back was simply not an option. After all we were taking on all that is wrong with politics,” he adds. The campaigners admit that the support from the people of Varanasi was enormous. “Without the help and inclusion of the locals it would have been impossible for us to run such a successful campaign,” says Prerna. The road show of Arvind Kejriwal on 9 May was an eye-opener. “Before that we still had doubts about people’s mood. But the number of locals who joined that day’s road show was a reassuring reminder that the hard work we had put in mobilising masses was paying off,” she says. In the run-up to the poll on 12 May, hundreds of people from different parts of the country came down to this ancient temple town on the bank of the Ganga to support and work for the candidate of the AAP. “Many I spoke to just descended there to make an anti-Modi statement. That made Arvind Kejriwal their natural ally,” says a journalist covering the event. However, he mentions that was the same case even for Narendra Modi. “Many people came here to show their support to Modi and they had barely anything to do with the BJP,” he adds. After all the hard work, it’s wait time for the volunteers now. They will have to wait for a couple of days more to know whether their fight against all odds has found its logical conclusion.