UP Polls: When road shows are talk of the town, people line up to compare

VARANASI: When PM Modi embarked on his road show on Sunday, people of the city drew direct comparisons with the ones held by Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday. The SP-Congress road show, which started at the Ambedkar Chauraha on Saturday, was being seen as a “propaganda victory” for the alliance.

“Modiji’s road show extended till late hours, even after the sunset. He went through Muslim areas like Chaukaghat while the alliance leaders were confined to the Muslim areas,” Sameer Jain, a BJP worker in the city, said.

On Saturday, the prime minister had hit the campaign trail with an impromptu road show while he was on his way to two of the city’s most revered shrines — Kashi Vishwanath and Kaal Bhairav temples — in the morning. While critics questioned the appropriateness of the prime minister holding a road show with Union minister Upendra Kushwaha saying that he didn’t feel “it was right”, some others compared the crowds at both road shows.

The opposition said that the focus on Varanasi showed the BJP’s nervousness in the high-profile constituency. “Modiji went into narrow streets but the alliance leaders chose wider roads. The PM wants to catch as many eyeballs as possible,” a BJP leader said.

The prime minister’s focus on Varanasi is also seen as his attempt to show his responsibility for his constituency and the verdict of UP elections. In 2012, the BJP had won three of the five assembly constituencies in Varanasi and the SP won the other two.

PM Modi’s road show was a clear message that the PM was out on the streets fighting Akhilesh Yadav. It doesn’t serve the BJP well, Jayakumar Pandey, an admirer of the PM said. People also pointed out that there were workers brought from several states for Modi’s road show.

“Sab hi bahar waale aaye hai dono road shows mein,” Anup Gupta, a voter, said. The road show of the alliance also went on for five hours.