

This is a polite newspaper. It does not allow use of unparliamentary language and of a three-letter word beginning with l and ending with e. As such, one must resort to a euphemism to ask if the district magistrate (DM) of Varanasi district and the returning officer of the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency has been economical with the truth. Establishing that point is key to understanding whether the BJP was justified in protesting against the district administration, sitting on a dharna and getting Narendra Modi to drive to his party office in Varanasi, in a theoretically routine exercise that became a massive show of political mobilisation.



Alternatively, was the Election Commission (EC) justified in standing by the DM?



The fact is the DM has changed his story several times, depending on the listener. On the evening of May 5, when the BJP asked for permission for Modi to address a public meeting in Benia Bagh in Varanasi, his only campaign speech in the urban segment of the constituency, the DM verbally agreed. It was decided a formal application and the deposit for the ground would be submitted the following morning. This was duly done at 7.30 am on May 6.



At 2.00 pm on May 6, the district magistrate informed the BJP that Benia Bagh could not be allotted for the Modi meeting as one “Mr Khan” had booked it in the interim on behalf of his NGO. Apparently, he wanted to unfurl the national flag. Subsequently, other district officials confirmed to BJP functionaries that Mr Khan’s application had been backdated and that the DM had exempted him from paying the deposit.



When confronted, the DM cancelled Mr Khan’s allotment and instead told the BJP he had received a report from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Delhi warning of a security threat. Arun Jaitley, senior leader of the BJP, contacted the IB and was categorically told by the top leadership of the Bureau that no such special warning had been issued.





Now the DM began speaking about alerts from the local police and about how a BJP election meeting in Benia Bagh in 1991 had led to localised violence. He ignored that both Arvind Kejriwal and Akhilesh Yadav had addressed the public in Benia Bagh in the 2014 election season itself. At this stage, the DM also denied Modi the right to participate in an aarti event by the Ganga, or to gather 150 prominent citizens and intellectuals of Varanasi in a hotel hall for an interaction. In effect, Modi was banned from Varanasi city. Subsequently, at close to 2.00 am on May 8, a letter of permission for the meeting with intellectuals and the Ganga aarti was delivered at the residence of a BJP functionary. Well before that, the party had called off the events, arguing it was too late for the logistics. It had also announced its dharna.



At the Election Commissioners’ media conference on the afternoon of May 8, the EC added another twist to the tale. It said the DM had rejected the Benia Bagh option because the ground was too small to accommodate the big crowds Modi would gather. This too didn’t make sense. After all, in the set of permissions delivered at close to 2.00 am that morning, the DM had asked the BJP to hold its public meeting at the Chhota Cutting Memorial Maidan. This is smaller than Benia Bagh and takes in only 3,000-4,000 people.



As such, if the crowd Modi was expected to pull in couldn’t, in the perception of the DM, fit into Benia Bagh, how could it fit into a smaller area in Chhota Cutting? This was the final act in the DM’s litany of contradictions. Actually, a clue to the sort of pressure the DM may have been under was provided early in this controversy. Meeting a senior leader of the Varanasi BJP, the DM smiled in the midst of a disagreement and said, “After all, I have to stay here after the election …” The implication of obvious. He had a state government – and a ruling party – to serve.





The writer is a senior journalist.