When Narendra Modi decided to contest the Lok Sabha election from Varanasi in 2014, residents of the pilgrimage site in Uttar Pradesh welcomed him as one of their own. There was all-round excitement that a prime ministerial candidate had chosen this ancient city on the banks of the Ganga as his constituency.
Modi, then the chief minister of Gujarat, was hailed as a strong, decisive leader as well as an able administrator. Conversations in the streets of Varanasi invariably dwelt on how Modi’s Gujarat model of development had changed the face of his home state, giving it 24-hour power supply,
