Campaigning for UP polls ends at Varanasi’s ghats
Helicopters and planes are back in hangars, microphones and loudspeakers have gone silent. Both were on overdrive for last two months —since the polls were notified on January 4.
The campaign in Uttar Pradesh ended on Monday evening.
Till now in Uttar Pradesh, while a phase voted, the next phase area spread the cacophony across the state. But in the seventh and last phase, voters will have complete silence.
But before the silence set in, Modi-Shah-Akhilesh-RahulMayawati took the campaigning to a crescendo.
The Varanasi region is crucial for the BJP, SP and BSP equally. It is important for the BJP as three union ministers including Rajnath Singh, union HRD Minister Dr Mahendra Nath Padey and Manoj Sinha belong to it.
The region has 40 seats, including Varanasi (8), Jaunpur (9), Ghazipur (7), Mirzapur (5), Bhadohi (3), Sonbhadra (4) and Chandauli (4). Ghazipur and Jaunpur are strongholds of the Samajwadi party. In the 2012 assembly election, the ruling party won six out seven seats in Ghazipur and seven out of nine seats in Jaunpur. It won two seats in Banaras, three out of four seats in Sonbhadra, three each in Bhadohi and Mirzapur and two in Chandauli.
While Modi held a rally in Rohania, and had been campaigning in Varanasi and its vicinity for three days, so did the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, as Varanasi saw a campaign blitz like no other part of the state.
BSP supremo Mayawati however wrapped up her campaign with her last rally in Varanasi on Saturday. On Monday, she restricted herself to a press conference in Lucknow .
Prime Minister Modi campaigned extensively in Varanasi, his parliamentary constituency. He addressed three election rallies and led two road shows that covered three assembly constituencies—Varanasi North, Vara
CONTINUED ON P 5
to mila, izzat aur naukri kahan se aayegi? (We got justice, but how will we get back our prestige or jobs)?”
This is the plaint of Mohit, one of the three Haryana youth discharged last week by a local court, absolved of charges of harassing two sisters on a bus about two years ago.
A video of the three men being thrashed on a bus by two girls, Aarti and Pooja, after allegedly being harassed, went viral and the sisters were quickly hailed as ‘Sonepat brave hearts’.
Mohit and his two friends — Kuldeep and Deepak — were briefly arrested before being let out on bail.
But though the girls’ version has been thrown out by the court and the men vindicated, for Mohit and his friends life can never be the same.
Meanwhile, the sisters from Thana Khurd village in nearby Sonepat are continuing with their studies at a college in Gurgaon in the National Capital Region.
››FULL STORY ON PAGE 4