VARANASI: The Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) is banking on Narendra Modi’s star power to sweep the eight assembly seats in Varanasi district, home to the prime minister’s parliamentary constituency, making it a matter of prestige. The Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance, BJPs main competitor, however, believes that failed promises will lead to its downfall.BJP president Amit Shah , who’s been camping in Varanasi for a week, has told party functionaries to pull out all the stops to win the eight seats and leave nothing to chance. Voting take place in the area on March 8 in the final phase of polling, with counting set for March 11. “All Varanasi is under Modi’s spell. We will sweep all seats. The talk of dispute over tickets is over and all party workers and leaders are now involved in the party’s efforts to win the Varanasi seats,” BJP state president Keshav Prasad Maurya told ET. Home Minister Rajnath Singh echoed this on Monday, saying he was sure Varanasi would repose its faith in Modi and the BJP. “I know Varanasi people as I come from Chandauli,” Singh said.Modi himself is expected to camp here on March 4 and 5 and will likely hold two small public meetings and a mass rally, besides paying a visit to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.The programme hasn’t been officially announced yet as the BJP wants to make sure it has the last word in the campaign since Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi have planned a four-hour joint road show in Varanasi on March 4.“Rahul Gandhi will also hold arally in my assembly constituency on March 2,” said Ajay Rai, Congress candidate and MLA from Varanasi’s Pindra seat. Rai had organised Sonia Gandhi’s now-famous road show in Varanasi last August in the course of which she suffered a health scare.“Unki hawa kharab hai (They are in panic mode). All BJP workers are sitting at home in Varanasi, while all big party leaders and cabinet ministers are camping here,” said Rai. “The alliance will win all eight seats, and with big margins. Modi as the MP (member of Parliament) will work against them as all of his big promises of Varanasi, like to make it Kyoto, remain unfulfilled.”Dug-up roads, unfinished flyovers and poor sanitation are much-talked-about in Varanasi though people are split about who is to blame for the mess — the PM or the Akhilesh Yadav government.A number of people ET spoke to at the ghats in Varanasi said Modi was “well-intentioned” but the state government was not cooperative in executing projects. Some, however, do say Modi promised the moon but that the city is perpetually jammed and its streets dirty. “I was a Congress MLA in opposition but exerted my influence to get work done. But the BJP MLAs here and a powerful MP in Modi have failed. This is telling,” Rai said.Senior BJP leaders dismiss this and say Modi remains immensely popular in Varanasi and that will help the party overcome any anxiety over the chatter about a split in the ranks after some veteran MLAs were denied tickets. Congress-SP alliance leaders say the math is in their favour.Out of the eight seats, five comprise the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. Three of them — Varanasi North, South and Cantonment — were won by the BJP in 2012. However, the votes polled by the Congress and SP together exceed those of the BJP’s winning candidates in two of the seats. The joint SP-Congress vote count came to nearly 82,000 against 57,000 for the BJP’s winning candidate Jyotsana Shrivastava in Cantonment. They added up to 68,000 in Varanasi North seat against 47,000 for the BJP’s winning candidate Ravindra Jaiswal.The third victorious BJP candidate, from Varanasi South, Shyam Dev Chaudhary, did poll slightly more votes than the SP and Congress candidates jointly but the seven-time MLA wasn’t given a ticket this time. It’s gone to rookie candidate Neelkanth Tiwari. Chaudhary has not been spotted in the campaign so far. “I have been given no explanation why my ticket was cut. Some say it was due to my age, 75 years, but there are at least two-three BJP candidates in UP older than me,” Chaudhary said.The alliance is, therefore, confident of winning the Varanasi South seat by a huge margin as also the Cantonment seat where the BJP has dropped sitting MLA Shrivastava for her son Saurabh. The Congress and SP are fighting four each of eight Varanasi seats.