The Sangh readily embraced the idea. Varanasi, after all, was the ultimate repository of Hindu civilization. As Diana Eck says in her classic account of Varanasi, Banaras: City of Lights, ‘Here all the Hindu gods have emerged from the shadows into bold relief, as people have come to understand them, have seen their faces and created their multi-form images.’ If Modi was indeed a Hindu Hriday Samrat, then Varanasi was a natural choice as the capital of his kingdom. Shah had another, more pragmatic political reason for the decision. In his analysis of UP, it was Purvanchal or eastern UP that worried him the most. Of the twenty-ﬁve seats in the region, the BJP had won just four in 2009. The SP and BSP had become the dominant forces here. If Mission 272-plus was to be achieved, a dramatic shift was needed in Purvanchal and the adjoining Bhojpur belt in Bihar. What better way than to get the BJP’s mascot to contest from the region? ‘I was convinced this would enthuse our workers and send out a strong message to the voter,’ Shah later told me.