"Divya Kashi, Bhavya Kashi" - Modi's Kashi Is Different For Everyone

Today, with the last phase, India's Lok Sabha elections will end. In the last phase, the biggest prime seat is Varanasi because Prime Minister Narendra Modi contests elections from here. Being a prime seat, we tried to know the ground reality of Varanasi.

Narendra Modi contested elections from Varanasi for the first time in 2014, and he won. Narendra Modi had promised to make Banaras look line "Kyoto", which is not visible on the ground right now, but development has definitely taken place in the last 10 years. If people who know Banaras are asked, Banaras is a city full of narrow streets. The biggest change for Banaras residents after Modi's arrival is that a corridor has been built around the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple. Despite the construction of a big corridor, the fight for Gyanvapi is still going on.

When we reached Varanasi in early May, preparations were being made for the Prime Minister's rally there. A lot of crowd was seen moving towards Kashi Vishwanath. After the construction of Vishwanath corridor, tourism has increased a lot in Banaras. After reaching Godowalia Chauraha, you cannot drive on the roads leading to Vishwanath Corridor if you are not a VIP. From here Varanasi becomes different for you and others. If you are a VIP, then Varanasi will seem different for you and different for others. We started walking towards Vishwanath Corridor like common people and as soon as we reached there, we entered from one of the common entrance gates. Common people have to stand in a long queue to have darshan of Baba Vishwanath. We also reached inside the corridor after standing in a queue of hundreds. Devotees standing in the queue shout "Har Har Mahadev" continuously or it is heard more due to the crowd. After this, at the time of darshan, you will not be able to see Baba Vishwanath properly and the police will push you ahead in the line. Even if you have taken milk to offer, you will have to pour it through an iron pipe which does not even reach Baba (Vishwanath) properly.

Apart from all this, there is a VIP door on the other side through which the people taking entry are allowed to bring their mobile phones, these people do not shout loud slogans like the common people standing in line, they come inside peacefully, comfortably see Baba Vishwanath, offer milk, have a good darshan and go after clicking photos.

Since it was election time, BJP had organized a 4 day drone show at Daswamedh Ghat, most of the crowd who had come to see the drone show had come thinking that it was a government event, the entire ghat was full, after Ganga Aarti when the drone show starts, a woman hosting it gets people to shout Modi Modi slogans in an attractive way and a lotus flower is formed in the sky, we had seen such an election campaign for the first time. The opposition should definitely learn something from this.

Most of the people in the crowd that reaches the Ghat and chants Modi Modi are from outside. They see the Ghat decorated with lights, the big Vishwanath corridor, the Ghat and the drone flying in the sky and they consider this to be development.

In the name of this so-called development and big corridor, who knows how many houses were destroyed and how many ancient temples were ruined. Pranoy Roy has done ground reporting on his channel Decader for revealing these issues. Congress candidate from Varanasi Ajay Rai has also raised questions on the demolished temples.

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The purpose of this blog and reporting was to highlight how "Divya Kashi, Bhavya Kashi" are different for the VIP and for the common people.

How "Divya Kashi, Bhavya Kashi" are different for the residents of Kashi and for the tourists.

People of Kashi are requested to definitely vote, because what we saw and heard was Kashi not chanting "Bam Bam" but "Modi Modi".