Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party in Varanasi starts the final burst of campaigning for Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate seems reluctant to trust the party machinery in the temple town. That seems obvious from the fact that the officials monitoring the campaign down to its smallest detail and who are taking all the vital decisions are not from this constituency. They have been dispatched all the way from Gujarat.
These BJP leaders, Sunil Ojha and Arun Singh, operate in complete secrecy. “We have been strictly asked not to discuss them in public,” said a local BJP leader on the condition of strict anonymity.
Ojha, the former Bhavnagar MLA, is considered a staunch Hindutva follower. Originally from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, he was once close to Modi’s arch rival Pravin Togadia and had played a prominent role in the Sangh Parivar’s Ayodhya movement of 1990s. He is a confidant of the Gujarat Chief Minister.
Arun Singh, who hails from Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh, has spent several decades in Gujarat working for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A rather low-profile leader, he, too, is seen as one of the few in Gujarat whom Modi trusts.
They are being supervised by another Gujarat BJP official: Amit Shah, the former Gujarat home minister, who has been put in charge of the party's campaign in the vital state of Uttar Pradesh, “They participate in our war-room meetings of the district party leaders held every evening to discuss the day’s activities and plan out for the next day and report to Amit Shah and, sometimes, even to Modi himself,” said the local BJP leader.
By and large, other BJP officials remain tight-lipped about the men from Gujarat, and greet inquiries about them suspiciously. Ojha and Singh have come to dominate the district’s BJP machinery so completely, a silent competition has begun among local leaders to get into their good books. “This atmosphere has also led to a sense of distrust among our local leaders, who work hard but with a feeling that their activities are being watched,” said one local BJP leader.
Modi’s strategy in Varanasi is yet another indication that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate remains rather uncomfortable with – and perhaps even suspicious of – BJP officials outside Gujarat, and also of non-Gujarati cadres.
Those who know Modi explain that this attitude led the prime ministerial hopeful to force the party last year to appoint Amit Shah, his confidant and fellow Gujarati, as the BJP’s leader in charge of Uttar Pradesh, the state most crucial for Modi victory. For almost a decade, the BJP has been in complete disarray in this state, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats. In the 2004 and 2009 general elections, the party won ten seats each – that is, only an eighth of the state’s total.
The decision to induct Shah had surprised many both within and beyond the BJP because the social and electoral profiles of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are rather different. Modi’s enormous reliance on Shah is also said to rest on the fact that his former home minister has no further political ambitions of his own and therefore does not pose any political threat to his boss.
Even though the BJP has projected Modi as its face for the whole of the country, observers say that the Gujarat chief minister's actions in UP demonstrate that he seems unable to grow beyond his own state.
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These BJP leaders, Sunil Ojha and Arun Singh, operate in complete secrecy. “We have been strictly asked not to discuss them in public,” said a local BJP leader on the condition of strict anonymity.
Ojha, the former Bhavnagar MLA, is considered a staunch Hindutva follower. Originally from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, he was once close to Modi’s arch rival Pravin Togadia and had played a prominent role in the Sangh Parivar’s Ayodhya movement of 1990s. He is a confidant of the Gujarat Chief Minister.
Arun Singh, who hails from Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh, has spent several decades in Gujarat working for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. A rather low-profile leader, he, too, is seen as one of the few in Gujarat whom Modi trusts.
They are being supervised by another Gujarat BJP official: Amit Shah, the former Gujarat home minister, who has been put in charge of the party's campaign in the vital state of Uttar Pradesh, “They participate in our war-room meetings of the district party leaders held every evening to discuss the day’s activities and plan out for the next day and report to Amit Shah and, sometimes, even to Modi himself,” said the local BJP leader.
By and large, other BJP officials remain tight-lipped about the men from Gujarat, and greet inquiries about them suspiciously. Ojha and Singh have come to dominate the district’s BJP machinery so completely, a silent competition has begun among local leaders to get into their good books. “This atmosphere has also led to a sense of distrust among our local leaders, who work hard but with a feeling that their activities are being watched,” said one local BJP leader.
Modi’s strategy in Varanasi is yet another indication that the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate remains rather uncomfortable with – and perhaps even suspicious of – BJP officials outside Gujarat, and also of non-Gujarati cadres.
Those who know Modi explain that this attitude led the prime ministerial hopeful to force the party last year to appoint Amit Shah, his confidant and fellow Gujarati, as the BJP’s leader in charge of Uttar Pradesh, the state most crucial for Modi victory. For almost a decade, the BJP has been in complete disarray in this state, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats. In the 2004 and 2009 general elections, the party won ten seats each – that is, only an eighth of the state’s total.
The decision to induct Shah had surprised many both within and beyond the BJP because the social and electoral profiles of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh are rather different. Modi’s enormous reliance on Shah is also said to rest on the fact that his former home minister has no further political ambitions of his own and therefore does not pose any political threat to his boss.
Even though the BJP has projected Modi as its face for the whole of the country, observers say that the Gujarat chief minister's actions in UP demonstrate that he seems unable to grow beyond his own state.