Varanasi is one of the most high-profile constituencies in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won the seat in 2014, is seeking re-election from 2019. One of the 80 parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi was represented by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi from 2009 to 2014 but he was asked by the party leadership to leave the seat for Modi.
Modi, the then prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, contested from two seats - Vadodara in Gujarat and Varanasi in UP - and won the seats by a margin of 5.70 lakh votes and over 3.7 lakh votes respectively.
In 2014 election in Varanasi, Modi was pitted against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and Congress' Ajay Rai. While Modi got over 5,81,000 votes, Kejriwal and Rai managed about 2,09,000 and 75,000 votes respectively.
The seat is a stronghold of the BJP with the party winning it for four consecutive terms from 1991 to 1999. While Shrish Chandra Dikshit emerged victorious in 1991, Shankar Prasad Jaiswal won in 1996, 1998 and 1999. Jaiswal was defeated by Rajesh Kumar Mishra of the Congress. The BJP won back the seat in 2009 when Dr Murli Manohar Joshi defeated mafia don Mukhtar Ansari by 18,000 votes.
This election, the Samajwadi Party has nominated Shalini Yadav as the candidate for the SP-BSP-RLD alliance while the Congress has fielded former MLA Ajai Rai.
Rai, a gangster-turned-politician, had unsuccessfully contested against Modi in 2014 and finished third in the contest after the BJP leader and Kejriwal.
The SP, after announcing Yadav as its candidate, later declared support for sacked BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav. However, his nomination papers were rejected by the Returning Officer who held that Yadav failed to furnish a certificate as mandated under the Representation of Peoples (RP) Act to the effect that he has not been "dismissed for corruption or disloyalty to the state".
Yadav was dismissed from BSF in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the food served to the troops.
Modi filed his nomination papers for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat on April 26, accompanied by a galaxy of top BJP and NDA leaders in a massive show of strength for the country's ruling alliance.
Bihar Chief Minister and JD-U chief Nitish Kumar, Union minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan, Shiv Sena supremo Uddhav Thackeray and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal were with Modi at the Collectorate as Modi filed his papers, seeking a second term in the Lok Sabha from the constituency.
BJP leaders, including party president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and senior Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj, were also present on the occasion.
In the last parliamentary elections in 2014, the BJP had won 71 seats in the state, securing 42.63 per cent of the votes. BJP ally Apna Dal bagged two more. The Samajwadi Party had won five seats with a vote share of 22.35 per cent. The BSP did not win any seat but secured 19.77 per cent votes. The Congress registered wins on two UP seats in 2014, bagging 7.53 per cent of the votes.
UP is facing a triangular battle between the BJP, the Congress and BSP-SP-RLD alliance. Under the alliance's seat-sharing formula, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting on 38 Lok Sabha seats of the total 80 seats, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party on 37 seats and the Chaudhary Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on three seats. The alliance has left two for Congress' Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi).
In the seventh phase of Lok Sabha polling, 13 seats in Uttar Pradesh - Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushi Nagar, Deoria, Bansgaon, Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Robertsganj - are going for polls.
In 2014 election, all of these 13 seats were won by the BJP with Prime Minister Narendra Modi securing his victory from Varanasi.
The counting of votes of the Lok Sabha election 2019 will be conducted on May 23.
