Half-an-hour before Arvind Kejriwal’s cavalcade is to arrive at Mint Building Chowraha – his last stop before proceeding to file nomination papers in the Varanasi District Magistrate’s office – a young Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) volunteer is distributing the party’s signature headgear. There are quite a few takers. The area, although not engulfed in a sea of white caps by any stretch of the imagination, has a sizeable number of people sporting the AAP caps.  I approach a chaiwallah – for symbolic reasons, yes – and ask him what makes him wear the cap. “The heat. What else?”

An hour or so later, when Arvind finally arrives, there is more than a crowd.  Most of them sport white caps too. The war cry of the day, chosen keeping the venue and event in mind, is – Modi darta hai, Do seaton se ladta hai (Modi is scared, he fights from two seats). There are a bunch of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers standing next to me, assessing things – it’s a convenient dress rehearsal for them. “Why can’t they do their own thing? Why bring in Modi-ji everywhere”, one of them complains. Taken at face value, it is a fair grievance – all the other slogans that follow during the next two hours have mention of Modi as well. People in Varanasi notice that too – and they care. “Kejriwal preaches a very negative breed of politics – only problems but no solutions”, says Ravi Ranjan who owns a shop in the area.

*****

Arvind, who’s probably never cracked a joke in his life, is being taken with very little seriousness in Varanasi. The AAP is like the new circus in town – you give it an audience, find the clowns even endearing, but never take them seriously. The crowd that turned out for Arvind’s pre-nomination roadshow is more than proof of it – they wore their free Aam Aadmi Party caps, posed in front of the many cameras, but took them off equally easily when chided for wearing a jhadoo on their head. Even people who support the AAP with more conviction are somewhere a little unsure.

Corruption or Inflation? What would Arvind fix first? “Arvind Bhaiyya will bring down the price of eatables – that’s why we support him”, says Manju who doesn’t even look old enough to vote, although she insists she is.  When asked what the party’s main mudda (agenda) is, she’s confused. Pramod Bhartiya, a party volunteer, comes to her rescue and tells her – and me – that both issues are two sides of the same coin. “Corruption is the main issue and inflation will come down itself when corruption is combated”, urges Rajput.

To make matters worse for Arvind and AAP, a lot of those supporting them are doing so because of the anti-incumbency factor, which is a double-edged sword in Varanasi. “Modi is a good man but the BJP hasn’t done anything for us since the last decade”, says Satyender Singh Rajput. Rajput is someone – and there are many like him – the AAP shouldn’t be counting on. BJP’s all set to step up operations in Varanasi after April 26 and it’ll rally around Modi and only Modi – much like the rest of the country – and the BJP’s lack of performance in Varanasi in its last two terms may very well be overlooked for the cult of Modi’s Gujarat.

Also, very importantly, the Aam Aadmi Party has a severe dearth of the likes of Bhartiya. The kind of supporters who’d relentlessly work at keeping Arvind relevant amidst the Modi blitzkrieg that will soon be unleashed by the BJP. To be fair to them, it’s a task that was always going to be difficult for them – and the BJP with its massive manpower and overflowing coffers – is almost impossible to match, particularly in Varanasi. Arvind’s pretty much the only mass leader the AAP has (Arvind’s polemical statements about the party being greater than any leader means nothing in the Indian context) while Varanasi is a full-fledged BJP bastion. Five of the six Assembly constituencies in Varanasi have sitting MLAs from BJP and there are as many as 50 BJP municipal corporators in Varanasi – most of them with their own specific – and very loyal – vote banks.

*****

One leader that the BJP is banking upon in this election is six-time MLA from South Varanasi, Shyam Dev Rai Chaudhury. Affectionately called Dada by almost the whole of Varanasi, Chaudhury, 72, is the epitome of a grassroots leader – the exact kind that has kept BJP politically relevant in spite of so many mishaps. We meet in his house where a room (that would do well with a coat of paint this Diwali) next to the entrance is his office. “Arvind’s holier-than-thou, like he’s come from some another planet. Everyone except him, he wants us to believe, is corrupt ”, he says when I ask him what he thinks of Arvind.

Unlike most other politicians, Rai only speaks when asked and keeps his answers really short – at times a little too short for my liking. I ask him if he feels bitter at not having been considered for the Lok Sabha elections, considering his impeccable track record. “I’m not an ambitious man. Things have just happened in my life – I’ve never planned anything.” When I ask if the BJP’s been a little unfair on senior leaders like Jaswant Singh and him, he tells me that the party’s done a lot for everyone.  For all of Rai’s statesman-like qualities, he is a smart political operator. A man comes to the room and lingers by the door. When there’s a moment of silence he asks Rai, “So I should get the people at 8 tomorrow?” The man is talking about getting a crowd for Narendra Modi’s nomination that is scheduled the next day. Rai cuts him short and pretends not to pay much attention. But Ray is too experienced not to understand the symbolism of numbers on that day.  He’ll do his bit.

Another section that will do more than its bit is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the numerous groups directly and indirectly affiliated to it. Here the buzzword is Sanatan Dharma – but it’s being played very carefully and only in select circles. The BJP is more than aware that religion cannot be a poll plank anymore, but they are also equally conscious of the fact that there is a vote bank there, a fairly substantial one at that in a place like Varanasi. “Modi-ji has been sent to be the protector of Sanatan Dharma – all the Brahmins will aggressively vote for him”, Jitendra Anand Saraswati, the general secretary of the Ganga Mahasabha says. Saraswati, who claims to be non-political, knows his political numbers very well as is apparent when I ask him if Arvind is going to benefit from Mukhtar Ansari’s  – the Muslim vote magnet of the region – withdrawal. “Varanasi has a total of 17 lakh voters, out of which only 2.5 lakh are Muslims. Muslims in Varanasi are divided into many groups, who constantly fight with each other. In fact, each group has more than one leader, each with different personal allegiances. So the Muslim vote will get divided – and it’ll benefit no one”, he declares. “Wait and watch tomorrow – you’ll see who Varanasi will vote for.”

*****

When Modi’s cavalcade finally arrives at the District’s Magistrate’s at around 1.30 in the afternoon on April 24, there’s almost a mini stampede.  Everyone wants a glimpse of the man they’ve heard so much about but Modi’s car is surrounded by his security and no one gets to see much. “I have never seen any prime minister of the country, that’s why I have come”, says Chanchal Kumar. “Modi is brave and solid – we need a leader like him to protect our culture from Congress”, says Ram Avataar Pandey, president of the Benares Bar Association who wants me to mention in my report that he’s a poet and author too. The lawyers in the background approve and urge me to interview the president of the women’s wing. She is a Muslim, they say.

Bablu Chaubey, a BJP worker, started at 6am from his village, 20 kilometres away, to be on time (Modi was late by a good hour and a half though). “I have arranged for 10 motorbikes and 5 SUVs personally. A friend of mine’s brought with him 10 SUVs. I’ll do the same on polling day. And we’ll make sure people are also dropped back from the polling booth – they always forget that part”, he tells me. Chaubey is almost gullible – I ask him if he’s comfortable being quoted.

He opens his notebook and asks me to note down his email id from there and send him the news clipping. He is suspicious when I don’t note down the password written below the email address. “Please do write about us – we’ve also worked hard”. When Modi waves from inside his heavily guarded vehicle,  Chaubey cries out “Ab ki baar, Modi Sarkaar” one more time with as much gusto as he can muster after standing in the unyielding Varanasi sun for more than five hours.

*****

At 4 pm on the same day, the general atmosphere in the makeshift BJP media-cell in a banquet hall in Hotel Surya is that of exultation. Maps marking out Modi’s route for the day are strewn around the room – which with its 12 computer screens arranged next to each other, looks like a corporate office. People have worked relentlessly over the last few days to make sure that an unprecedented show of numbers is achieved – they’ve ended up doing much more. “This is the largest crowd the country has ever seen on a nomination day”, says Deputy Media-In-Charge, P Tiwari. To my enquiry of what exactly the media cell does, Tiwari tells me that their main job is to disseminate information. “This is the media cell for the whole of the Purvanchal region – the Kashi and Awadh zones.” When I ask if he shares the same sentiments as some in the BJP do about English news channels. “There’s a way to treat everyone; we know how deal with them too”, says Tiwari.

“How important is good press?” I ask. “Indians don’t vote with their brains – they vote on the basis of what they see and hear”, Tiwari opines. That, along with the right noises at the right places, is what the BJP is banking upon. To their credit, they seem to have got it right this time.