"Varanasi is run by civil contractors. They control our quality of life, our mood and our speed in the city,” Dhirendra Singh, 30, a battery-operated tempo driver, said on Thursday when asked why there was waterlogging at so many places in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency.

“The contractors get funds every year to dig up roads in the name of cleaning and repairing the sewers, and they love doing this during monsoons only. You can see the roads have been dug all over the city, but repair and cleaning have not started. The roads will be dry once the monsoon is over. Then they will refill the sites which they had dug up and say that the work is done,” said Singh, who has been operating tempos in the city for the last 10 years.

“I tell my customers every day that the usual speed of a driver on the wide roads of the city is 10km per hour during this season because of traffic jams, which is the result of broken roads.”

Singh’s complaints, which were supposed to be heard by administrative or civic officers, reached police commissioner Mohit Agrawal. The officer has asked the police stations in the city to file FIRs against six contractors who have dug up the roads and have not done any repair work for the last 20 days.

“I have asked the police to file FIRs and arrest those contractors who have neglected the civic conditions completely,” said the officer, who was particularly angry with the contractor who dug up the roads between Rathyatra Crossing and Gurubagh Marg in the name of cleaning two weeks ago, but did nothing thereafter.

“It is a strange situation in Varanasi, probably because Modi represents the constituency. If you go to any senior state official with the complaint of waterlogging or garbage on the roads, they will tell you ‘off the record’ that companies from Gujarat have got the contracts to do such work, and nobody can cancel their tenders.

“You dig deeper and you will find that most of the contractors are locals. They could be BJP leaders. But the fake news is systematically spread that the companies are from Gujarat. It is proof that all is not well between Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath, whose officers are spreading this rumour here,” said a journalist.