Why Modi is losing his fans in Varanasi

Varanasi - Varanasi residents now allege that attempts to clean the river have so far been unsuccessful.

As I make my way in an autorickshaw from the Varanasi railway station to my hotel, I am greeted by a green signal light at the busy Maldahiya crossing with a crisp LED road safety message in Hindi and English - barely a quarter past 10 in the night.
 
Intrigued, I ask my driver, if this was a new installation (I wouldn't know anyway I wondered having last come here as a six or seven-year-old) and whether it was thanks to Modiji? I get my answer in a flash, faster than a 4G download - an unintelligent yet beaming smile that I have now gotten familiar with, a quick shrug of the shoulder and a loud and zealous yes as if to override the clamour of a returning wedding musical band troupe across the street, a handful of other auto rickshaws and bikes that are darting across an otherwise deserted Vidyapeeth road. But as I get off at my hotel and speak to more people, I realise not everybody may not be as upbeat and exuberant reading out prime minister Narendra Modi's report card as Varanasi's Member of Parliament.
 
"Clean ganga has hardly taken off. Yes, the ghats look clean and they are lit now but so what? What about the river itself? asks Ved Pratap Pandey, who I bump into at a Banarasi chaat stall, opposite my hotel and my savior for the night with all other restaurants shut, well past their closing time.  "Sadly, to me it appears just like how he goes about addressing other big issues at a national level - one big eye-wash," the 28-year old accounts executive goes on, saying neither did he clean the Ganges nor has he turned Varanasi into Kyoto, as promised.
 
Varanasi residents now allege that despite Modi's assurances - attempts to clean the river have so far been unsuccessful. Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had promised that 80% of the river will be cleaned by May 2019. His predecessor, Uma Bharti, had promised a clean river by 2018. "All seem to be lies as of now," Pandey insists.
 
"People may be excited about Modiji's work but I don't see any of it," says another Varanasi resident who is even contemplating voting for NOTA (None Of The Above) because "if you can't be a fan of Modi's rivals here, you can't quite be a fan of Modi too"
 
"He talked about turning Varanasi into Kyoto. Both are deeply historic cities with great legacies of their own but where is the work done?" asks another resident taking a dig at the VAKYO (Varanasi Kyoto) initiative that Narendra Modi had launched amidst great fanfare with an aim to connect the heritage of the two cultural cities through the India Japan Global Partnership and derive inspiration from Kyoto to develop Varanasi as a Smart Heritage City. "We don't see extended power cuts like before but nothing has happened on the smart city project optherwise," he says.
 
Kyoto, in fact, has now become a weapon for Modi's opponents in Varanasi. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday, in the run up to the election final day, attacked the Prime Minister for allegedly not fulfilling his promise of transforming Varanasi into a smart city like Kyoto. "In this very place the PM had said that he will make Varanasi into Kyoto. If Varanasi has not been made into Kyoto, then the PM has to be changed," Akhilesh was quoted as saying by local media here during his election campaign.
 
But for a sizeable population, a bigger storm is brewing near the ghats and over the narrow alleys that lead to what is the very heart of Varanasi. AP, an orthodox Hindu priest (name withheld on request) tells Khaleej Times that many people like him - including staunch BJP supporters - feel disenchanted with Modi and Yogi (Adityanath) administration today after how they have handled the Kashi Vishwnath Corridor project that aims to remodel the eponymous temple - amongst the most scared in Hinduism and one that lends Varanasi its very identity.
 
"It's a very sensitive issue not just for priests and religious people but for most old-timers here. The demolition of buildings near the historic temple is like trampling Kashi's very soul and Modi has absolutely no regard for it," he said referring to the demolition of the surrounding buildings that housed thousands of people in the area for over three centuries. "Forget religion. It's about sentiment.
For thousands of us, this was our very existence and now we have to go elsewhere and adjust," he says, adding that many he knows have had to unwillingly let go of their shops and homes for a compensation, they feel can never be enough.
This comes even as - Khaleej Times has learnt -  owners and lessees of demolished buildings have been compensated by up to four times their estimated property value in certain cases.
According to reports, each family with a rented home has been given Rs 1 million while each shopowner has been given half the amount. Property owners have been given financial compensation after due evaluation.
On Saturday, Khaleej Times did a ground visit and found several excavated sites surrounded with debris of what appeared to be small temples before - around the main Kashi Vishwanath temple.
"Ram Mandir which was a big election agenda even in the last state elections, has now been conveniently forgotten as has the Kashi temple here. Modi must redeem himself or he will not get our votes," said a temple worker in Varanasi.