Chinmayanand

Jaunpur, April 24: Swami Chinmayanand, the minister of state for home, is a harried man as he fights to retain the Jaunpur Lok Sabha seat.

The swami, whose politics is anchored in the VHP’s school of Hindutva and who was a member of the Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas until he became a minister, used to switch his constituency after every Lok Sabha election he fought since 1991. This time, the BJP forced him to stick to Jaunpur, a seat he won easily the last time on the strength of the Brahmin and Thakur votes and those of some backward castes. But the Brahmin voters look as though they may root for the BSP’s Om Prakash Dube, alias Baba.

Chinmayanand rushed to the scion of the former ruler of Jaunpur, Yadavendra Dube, to “seek his blessings” — an euphemism to canvass Brahmin support. The erstwhile raja said he would “consider” his appeal, according to an aide of the swami.

Would it make a difference? Sudhir Upadhayay, a lawyer and a Brahmin, says: “Fifty per cent of us will vote the BSP, even if our votes are wasted. We are angry with the swami because he worked only for the Thakurs. A fatwa or whatever from the raja will make no difference because he is only a ruler within the walls of his crumbling haveli. Outside, he is a commoner like me.”

In one of the many contradictions besetting the Uttar Pradesh polls, Brahmins do not mind voting for the BSP despite the party’s stated anti-upper caste politics. But they resent the BJP for thrice supporting a Mayavati-led government. “Better to do business with her straight than in a roundabout way through the BJP. At the end of the day, what has the BJP given us? A Ram temple? No. Reservation? No. More tickets? No,” says Mahesh Prasad Mishra, a businessman in Sidhuana town of the Saidpur constituency.

Even Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s image as the “Maha Brahmin” — a point which the BJP subtly purveys in its campaign — does not wash fully. Virendra Pandey, an insurance agent of Bakaraganj Bazaar near Ayodhya, acknowledges Vajpayee’s record on the foreign policy front. But closer home, he says: “Vajpayee used the Ram temple to cover the distance from Lucknow to Delhi. And now that he’s there, he speaks the same language as the Congress and says we will abide by the court verdict.”

In the Brahmin bastion of Varanasi, Congress candidate Rajesh Mishra, a former student leader, is emerging as a favourite of the twice-born despite the fact that they have faithfully voted BJP since 1991.

Suddenly, the BJP’s Shankar Prasad Jaiswal is perceived as a Bania rather than a pan-Hindu representative. The reason? The BJP reportedly promised the Varanasi seat to Kalraj Mishra. After he started nurturing it, the RSS intervened and insisted on Jaiswal’s renomination. “The Brahmins felt short-changed,” says S.P. Ghoshal, a lawyer and a keen political observer.

The surest sign of a drift away from the BJP was when well-known environmentalist and mahant of the Sankat Mochan temple, Veer Bhadra Mishra, inaugurated the Congress candidate’s election office. “He did not issue an appeal but his mere presence was significant because all these years the mahant, who is widely respected, was silent during elections,” says Ghoshal.

While the BSP, with its cadre infrastructure, seems set to tap the votes of the disgruntled Brahmins, the Congress is not sure. Deep Narayan Pandey, Gonda district Congress chief, admits: “Our leaders are not able to garner votes despite the goodwill.”

Still, most acknowledge that the groundswell of Brahmin support for the Congress is enough to whip up a favourable ambience because “they are the real opinion-makers and the best propagandists”, as a Varanasi Muslim leader put it.