VARANASI: Sejal Sharma was a Class XII student, while brother Shivam was in Class VII, when their advocate father Brahmaprakash Sharma was killed in the twin blasts at the Varanasi District Court premises on November 23, 2007.
More than 16 years later, Sejal, now a resident of Mumbai is back in his native village Chhitauni in Varanasi district, where she campaigned silently for the two-time BJP MP from her constituency, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ahead of the June 1 voting.
She's not alone, but is joined by her advocate uncle (her father's cousin) Rajpati Singh Chaudhary, who too is campaigning against their own caste Bhumihar Brahmin candidate of INDI alliance Ajay Rai.
"For us, it's nation and not caste, which comes first. It was we who lost our father to the terrorist attack, so we know the pain inflicted by terrorism in the country. Had Modiji been the PM and Yogiji (Yogi Adityanath) been the UP CM at that time (2003), maybe none of the nine lives, including our father would have been lost on November 23, 2007," a tearful-eyed Sejal told The New Indian Express.
"I came to my village for my civil engineer brother's marriage, but have extended my stay here just to ensure that Modiji wins by a bigger margin than 2019. I along with my old college friends and close relatives are running a silent campaign for supporting Modiji. We've social media groups on which we're sharing reels and memes to support the PM. Our WhatsApp groups are linked to other like-minded groups and reach out to hundreds across Varanasi LS constituency," Sejal said.
Ensuring that he doesn't invite the wrath of friends from his own caste, who are campaigning for the same caste candidate and UP Congress chief Ajay Rai, Sejal's advocate uncle Rajpati Singh Chaudhary too is silently ensuring that hardcore BJP supporters in the caste as well as others come out of their houses and vote for the lotus symbol despite the soaring 47-48 degrees Celsius temperatures.
"There is a section in our Bhumihar Brahmin caste, particularly in the two rural assembly segments of Rohania and Sewapuri, who are building a narrative to vote for Rai Sahab. We respect him, but we want to elect a PM and not just an MP from Varanasi. Those building narrative for Rai Sahab are saying if he doesn't win this time, it will mark the end of his political career and so as Bhumihars our first duty is to come to his rescue as even if we don't vote, Modiji is going to win from Varanasi may be with decreased margin. Who asked Rai Sahab to contest from Varanasi against PM Modi, he should have instead focussed on campaigning for party candidates as UPCC chief. Why should we ditch PM Modi for someone who is hell-bent at scoring self-goal," Chaudhary said.
In the adjoining Madhopur Kot (also forming part of Rohania assembly segment), a Bhumihar Brahmin construction material trader Dhirendra Singh confirmed that he may vote this time for Ajay Rai as a show of support to the caste. "Right since I voted for the first time, I’ve been voting for the BJP, but this time I can’t overlook Rai Sahab, as he’ll be available to me more than PM Modi."
In the neighbouring Tarapur Tikri and Narottampur villages (also dominated by the upper caste Bhumihars) groups of youngsters particularly are campaigning this time for their caste candidate Ajay Rai, who has been finishing third in the LS polls from Varanasi since 2009.
Such groups of youngsters could be seen in those villages mobilizing Bhumihar Brahmin youths for an evening poll meeting to be addressed by Ujwal Raman Singh, the young Bhumihar candidate of the INDI alliance from Allahabad seat. The meeting was slated to be held in the Susuwahi area of Rohania assembly segment which is close to the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) campus.
The Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency houses around 20 lakh voters, out of whom around 1.30 lakh plus are Bhumihars, spread particularly in two rural segments – Rohania and Sewapuri as well as parts of Varanasi Cantt seat.
Rai, a former BJP MLA who left the party in 2009 after being denied party ticket to contest LS polls, has been fighting the Lok Sabha polls since then, but has finished third on all three occasions.
In 2009, he polled 1.23 lakh (19% votes) as SP candidate to finish third behind BJP's winner Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and first runner-up Mukhtar Ansari of the BSP.
In 2014, he secured 75,000-plus votes (8% votes) to finish a distant third behind Narendra Modi and runner up Arvind Kejriwal.
Upsetting all poll calculations in 2019, the SP's candidate Shalini Yadav came second behind Modi with 1.95 lakh votes, pushing Rai to the third spot with 1.52 lakh votes (14% votes).
Modi made his Lok Sabha debut winning from Varanasi by 3.71 lakh votes in 2014 against formidable AAP candidate Arvind Kejriwal and increased the winning margin to 4.79 lakh votes in 2019 against relatively weaker rivals – Shalini Yadav (SP) and Ajay Rai (Congress). BJP is targeting to increase the margin between 6 lakh and 8 lakh votes this time.
Though there are six candidates challenging PM Modi as he eyes a hat trick of wins from Varanasi on June 1, Rai stands the best chance to be the nearest rival, banking on a potent caste combination of Muslim, Yadav and Bhumihar votes (accounting to around 5.5 lakh votes), besides small sections of scheduled caste and non-Yadav OBC voters, who appear to be disillusioned with Modi owing to rising prices and lack of jobs.
"Sensing that Rai will go full throttle to win his Bhumihar caste voters this time, the BJP has already appointed two Bhumihar/Tyagi Brahmin leaders, Surendra Narayan Singh and Ashwini Tyagi as the convenors of polls for the Varanasi Lok Sabha. Besides that, the party has also been holding public meetings of its Bhumihar leaders, including union minister Giriraj Singh and UP minister AK Sharma in rural areas having strong Bhumihar population pockets. But still it won't be surprising if Rai who in the past LS polls didn’t manage to get more than 20-25% of his caste votes actually wins at least half of their support this time due to the local Vs outsider narrative being built by his team," senior Varanasi-based journalist Dinbandhu Rai maintained.
