Varanasi, Narendra Modi & Possibly Arvind Kejriwal’s Constituency, Set To Witness Boom In Political Tourism

NEW DELHI | LUCKNOW: The phone rang at around 1 am on Tuesday morning at Ganapati Guest House — a quaint inn by the ghats in Varanasi — and woke up its manager Nagendra Dubey out of his post-Holi slumber.

The caller, from Gujarat, wanted to know if he could accommodate 10 people arriving in the city to campaign for Narendra Modi, BJP's PM candidate. "I had to say 'no', as this is a small place and we are fully booked.

I suggested a few places near the cantonment and hung up… but I got a similar call this morning — from Hyderabad — asking for rooms," Dubey said.

Varanasi, Narendra Modi's constituency and possibly Arvind Kejriwal's too, is set to witness boom times as thousands descend on the city, volunteering either for BJP's Modi or Aam Aadmi Party's Kejriwal. Social media is acting, predictably, as a force multiplier in rush of political tourists to Varanasi.

On Twitter #ChaloVaranasi is already trending. Entrepreneur Naveen James, for instance, says there are at least 70-80 people on Twitter and in different groups on the site who he knows are planning a trip. "The idea is to spread the message through the 40-odd days left," he says. He himself has packed his bags to leave on Thursday for a week, after which he will head to Kerala to spread the message there.

AAP supporters too trooping in

"The idea is to explain Modi's development agenda and its benefits to villagers," says entrepreneur Naveen James. Like him, hundreds of Modi supporters from across the country, and outside — from Bihar, Nagaland, Gujarat, Gurgaon and Kenya — especially Namo's young admirers are planning to descend on the city to seek support from locals for their PM nominee. At the same time, thousands of people who do not want Modi to be PM are also on their way — many AAP supporters from places such as Odisha and Maharashtra, who campaigned for Kejriwal during the Delhi assembly polls, are among them.

Santosh Tiwari, who runs an ice cream business in Mombasa, Kenya, has planned a one-month sabbatical from his business to come down to Varanasi. Also on his agenda is a trip to south India. "A few of us plan to backpack and hitchhike through the constituency and in south India for a month, spreading the message to choose the right candidate," says Tiwari, who also doubles up as an international steel trader. These volunteers will join a barrage of party workers, sociologists and journalists who would be part of the stellar battle between a PM aspirant and a possible giant killer, who defeated the incumbent chief minister of Delhi Sheila Dikshit during the assembly elections in December.

These 'political tourists' are good for the city and Varanasi's hoteliers and local businesses are already excited by this sudden influx. At the end of the tourist season, this is extended business for them. "Business will grow 100%. Modi's supporters will come in large numbers and they would need space to stay. It will be like an extended tourist season," says the manager at Pratap Palace, a hotel at the town-centre. He didn't want to be named.

Taxi operators are too are enthused by the big business they are likely to get when the Modi and Kejriwal bandwagons descend on to the city in the next few days. Pratik Singh of Ganges Travels says he is expecting business to boom in the days ahead as the election campaign picks up. "Hordes of party workers and volunteers of BJP and supporters of Arvind Kejriwal are expected to start arriving in the next two-three days. There will be huge demand for taxis and we have geared up to cater to their needs," he says. So far, Team Modi has a definitive head-start.

Sandeep Srivastava, who works with an MNC in Gurgaon, has been working with his friends on voter registration for the past two months. He has managed to spare 10-15 days after the elections in Delhi are over (since he has a vote in Delhi) for a trip to the holy city where he wants to go door-to-door.

Outside of Varanasi city as well, there are there are volunteers who are spreading the Modi message in villages. A group of volunteers, organised under the hashtag #TeamKashi, is visiting villages and going to doorsteps. Temsutala Imsong from Mokokchung, Nagaland, took a break from her job at an MNC and has been talking to women in villages in the constituency. "There is a lot of fervor. They want to vote for Modi," she says.

Shiv Mishra, who runs an agro-commodities business in Kolkata but is originally from Varanasi, spends three days a week in the constituency. "My advantage is that I can converse with villagers around here in their dialect. I tell them about the infrastructure that I have seen in Gujarat and how it has made lives and businesses better," says Mishra.

A hotelier in Varanasi says he heard a rumour that 400 vans are to travel from Gujarat to Varanasi packed with Modi supporters. While it is good for business, what they can't understand is how the old city's roads will manage them. "If all of them really come into the city, it will be difficult to move here. There will be massive traffic jams," says the hotelier.

AAP's Kejriwal is holding a rally in the city on March 25 and that too will add to both business and chaos in the city, says locals. AAP's eastern UP secretary Anshul Srivastava, based out of Varanasi, says, "Our team members will start arriving from tomorrow (Wednesday). But obviously, the focus is on reaching out to people of Varanasi."