Akhilesh Yadav eyes Bengali voters in Varanasi through Mamata

The presence of a large number of people carrying banners and posters with slogans written in Bengali at his joint election meeting with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday must have heartened Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, who was nurturing dreams to make a dent into the saffron bastion.

After all, Varanasi had a large presence of Bengali voters and their support could be crucial in deciding the outcome of the polls there. A large number of Bengalis had made Varanasi their home in the past few decades. Their concentration was more in Bangali Tola, Bhadaini, Assi, Bhelupur and its adjoining localities.

The electoral significance of the Bengali voters could be comprehended from the fact that BJP leader Shyamdeo Roy Chowdhury, had won the Varanasi South assembly seat in seven consecutive assembly polls till 2017. In the previous polls, Chowdhary was dropped and replaced by Neelkanth Tewari. Tewari had won by a margin of over 17 thousand votes.

As Chowdhary showed signs of rebellion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to intervene to placate him and assure him that he would be ''accommodated suitably'' after the elections. Chowdhary had not been very active in politics since then.

Though the seat had been a BJP stronghold since 1989, the SP, in a bid to dent this saffron bastion, fielded a local priest Kishen Dixit, whose family was associated with the famous Mahamrityunjay Temple in the city. Dixit, who himself was the 'Mahant' (head) of the Temple, appears to be giving a tough fight to the BJP nominee and UP minister Neelkanth Tewari.

Tewari had, a few days ago, sought forgiveness of the electorate of the constituency for ''not being able to serve'' them effectively and sought another chance from them to rectify his mistakes.

The locals feel that a shift in the support of the Bengali voters could tilt the scale in favour of the SP on this seat, which also had 80 thousand Muslims, who were considered to be the core vote bank of the party. ''We are already in a strong position here...support from the Bengali voters will make our win a certainty,'' said Dheeraj Yadav, a resident of Godaulia in the town.

No wonder, Mamata, who was initially scheduled to spend two days in Varanasi, decided not only to extend her stay by a day, but also agreed to hold a roadshow with Akhilesh in the town on Friday. Her roadshow would also be passing through the areas dominated by the Bengali voters.

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