Namo chants, protests greet Arvind Kejriwal in Kashi

VARANASI: Nitish Upadhyay, a young AAP supporter wearing a checkered shirt and grey pants, made an attempt to weave his way through the crowd to reach Arvind Kejriwal, who was on the dais listening to his colleague Sanjay Singh at a rally organised in Varanasi on Tuesday.

Upadhyay, who wanted to pass on a hand-written note to Kejriwal, did not succeed in his attempt as he was promptly stopped by a party volunteer. His note, written on a small piece of paper torn from a ruled sheet, read,"Arvindji, please don’t contest from Varanasi. People here are crazy about Modi. Your supporter. Nitish Upadhyay."

The former Delhi CM, who travelled to Varanasi on Tuesday to hear what it had to say to him, announced his candidature against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, apparently, on cue from the audience attending his maiden rally in the temple town. But interestingly, many of Kejriwal’s supporters and well-wishers at the rally were hoping for just the opposite. Upadhyaya was one of them.

"I am a local and I know the ground situation. People here in Varanasi seem obsessed with Modi for no good reason. He (Kejriwal) is our only hope for change and I don’t want him to squander that chance by contesting from Varanasi," he said.

Upadhyay is not entirely off the mark. That Kejriwal is in for a tough fight was evident from his first day out in the temple town. As he travelled through the narrow bylanes of city interacting with the local people, he was often confronted with spontaneous and orchestrated chanting in favour of the BJP’s PM candidate and dismissive bystanders.

The local people living near the Kal Bhairav Mandir, Kejriwal’s second stop after his holy dip at the Dashashwamedh Ghat, burst into a spontaneous protest and the crowd almost flushed his car out of the area. He even had eggs and ink thrown at him at the Kashi Vishwanath temple.