Independent candidate wave crests in Varanasi

# Ashin U S, a graduate from Kerala, is in Kashi to throw down the gauntlet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He wants to share his Indian Gandhian Party’s idea of ensuring development without taking loans from institutions such as World Bank
# Ramkumar Jaiswal from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, has joined the fray against Modi because he wants to make it a contest of “fakir versus fakir”

# From Latur, Maharashtra, Manohar Anand Rao Patil — in Mahatma Gandhi garb — wants to challenge the PM because he believes promises of development made by the government in the past five years have rarely been honoured

Varanasi: Ashin, Ramkumar and Manohar are among 69 contenders who have turned up at the nomination office of the high-profile Varanasi parliamentary constituency between Monday and Tuesday.

District election officer Surendra Singh told TOI that all of them had procured challan forms.

“Of the 69 challengers, 37 have deposited the fee to receive their nomination forms while seven have filed their nominations till the scheduled time ended today (Tuesday),” Singh said.

The queue outside the nomination office at Riffle Club Hall on collectorate premises has been growing longer by the day, sources said. Most are either keen on contesting as independents or belong to fledgling parties. After taking challan forms, they are contacting local lawyers to complete formalities like depositing the prescribed fee at the treasury, collecting nomination forms and attaching necessary documents before filing the papers.

Among major political outfits, only Samajwadi Party has declared a candidate from Varanasi. On Monday, the SP pitted Shalini Yadav against Modi. Shalini had lost the 2017 mayoral elections, which she had contested on a Congress ticket.

Even though speculations are rife about Priyanka Gandhi Vadra taking on the PM in this coveted seat, the Congress is keeping its cards close to the chest. No announcement had been made till the filing of this report.

The TOI spoke to some of the candidates in queue on Tuesday to understand why they had travelled miles to contest from Kashi.

Ashin who claimed support of local Keralites said, “My party had tried to convey its entrepreneurship vision to the PM in the past, but was not granted audience. Hence, we decided to contest against him.”

Ramkumar, a tyre-tube trader in Jabalpur, said he wanted free education and health services for all.

He calls himself a “fakir (an ascetic who has renounced worldly pleasures and embraced poverty)” and underlines that if Modi is one too as the PM often claims, the contest will be fair.

Parvej Aqil from Bijnor quipped that he wanted to defeat Narendra Modi by a massive margin so that the latter “leaves the country after elections to stay with Nirav Modi in London”.

Besides districts of Uttar Pradesh and states such as Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Kerala, many candidates turned up from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand as well. Election officials believe that if the trend continues, Varanasi will have a record number of contenders by April 29 when the nomination filing window closes.

District election officer Singh said the swelling number of candidates was not a cause of worry, as 24 ballot units could be attached to every EVM. Each ballot unit contains 16 buttons, including NOTA. “In short, names of 360 candidates can be accommodated in each EVM,” he added.