The final day of voting in India’s six-week election is this Saturday, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using the sacred city as a staging ground for his Hindu nationalist agenda.
When the results are declared on Tuesday, Modi is predicted by many to win a third term in office, partly because of his forceful portrayal of himself as the representative of the majority faith in India.
The 73-year-old’s home district of Varanasi is the religious epicenter of Hinduism, drawing followers from all across India to the Ganges river to cremate their departed loved ones.
It is one of the final cities to vote in India’s gruelling election and where public support for Modi’s ever-closer alignment of religion and politics burns brightest.
“Modi is obviously winning,” Vijayendra Kumar Singh, who works in one of the popular pilgrimage destination’s many hotels, told AFP.
“There’s a sense of pride with everything he does, and that’s why people vote for him.”Modi has already led the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to two landslide victories in 2014 and 2019, forged in large part by his appeal to the Hindu faithful.
He oversaw the opening of a large temple dedicated to the god Ram this year. The building of the temple satisfied a long-standing demand of Hindu campaigners, and it was extensively observed with street celebrations and consecutive television coverage around the nation.
For a long time, observers predicted that Modi would win over the opposition alliance, which has never announced a prime ministerial candidate.
Numerous criminal investigations into his rivals and a tax probe this year that resulted in the freezing of the bank accounts of Congress, the biggest opposition party in India, have improved his chances even more.
