Varanasi (UP): As the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a month-long, cult-like fanfare from September 17 to October 17 to mark Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, The Wire visited his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi following a viral video from Shivala locality showing water logging. The visit assessed the reality of civic infrastructure amid boards reading ‘Swacch Kashi, Sundar Kashi’ (clean and beautiful city of Kashi) that adorned the streets and bridges of Banaras, the erstwhile name of Varanasi. While a Seva Sankalp Rally culminated in Varanasi on October 7, with BJP supporters travelling 2,000 km from Tirupati, a stroll through areas just a few kilometres away from the parliamentary constituency of India’s prime minister, weeks earlier, revealed another stark reality of the district, which was granted the status of ‘Smart City’ 10 years ago. On September 16, a day before the entire country was supposed to celebrate Modi’s 76th birthday, his parliamentary constituency wore a festive look. After all, there were two occasions to celebrate, at least that was what it seemed like if one were to pass through Sigra locality and continue along the Kutchery road, leading to the Varanasi district court. Along with banners bearing birthday greetings, the entire stretch was flanked by hoardings congratulating the prime minister on completing 25 years in “public service” after he first took the reins of power as the chief minister of Gujarat in 2001. ‘Swacch Kashi, Sundar Kashi’ board on the road leading towards Varanasi district court. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.‘Narendra Modi: Jan sewa se desh sewa’ (Modi: from serving the public to serving the country), stated a billboard put up on behalf of the UP government as part of its ‘Sewa Sankalp Abhiyan’, a month-long itinerary of events to mark Modi’s accomplishments in public service. The billboard also clubbed PM Modi’s completion of 25 years in power as chief minister and later prime minister, as well as his turning 76, as part of the state government’s ‘kaam dumdar, double engine sarkaar‘ campaign, usually associated with the government schemes implemented by the BJP-led governments at both the state and central levels. At two locations, as spotted by this reporter, larger-than-life cutouts of PM Modi were positioned prominently at traffic intersections: one in Teliyabag, under the Chaukaghat bridge, and another near Mahmoorganj. This was a day before the meeting of the ruling party-led National Democractic Alliance (NDA) was due to take place in Varanasi.A cutout of PM Modi at a traffic intersection near Chaukaghat bridge. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.‘Kanoon vyavastha chust, apradh par ankush‘ (referencing the law and order situation in UP) read another hoarding in Varanasi’s Cantt area. The message, put out on behalf of the UP government’s information department, was accompanied by photographs of both Chief Minister Adityanath and PM Modi.Around 6 km away, UP Police personnel deployed at the Bhelupur police station were searching for a miscreant who had allegedly stuffed Varanasi’s drains with bags full of sand with the supposed intention of causing water logging.The residents of Shivala, from where the video went viral, however, told a different story to The Wire. For them, wading through waterlogged lanes is a daily ordeal and several appeals for help have failed to elicit a response from the concerned authorities.‘No work usually gets done in Muslim dominated areas’“The problem is that the local municipal councillor of this area is simply not interested in getting any work done in this part of the locality. Around two years ago, as part of a campaign, children from this neighbourhood had even given hand-written letters to the councillor requesting that something be done about the choked drains, yet no action was taken on the ground,” said Sameer, a resident of Shivala, when asked about the condition of sewage pipeline in this area. “Even when there is no rain, the condition of the lanes here is not very good. The sewage system of this mohalla (area) hasn’t been changed in the last 40-50 years, with the population here still dependent on the age-old 12-inch broad drainage pipes. This is how it is in Muslim-dominated localities, be it Shivala or Bajardiha. No work usually gets done in these areas under the BJP’s rule,” Sameer told The Wire. Jani Khan (left) who recorded a video of water logging in Shivala, along with Sameer, who initiated a campaign to reach-out to local corporator. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.Standing outside a lane where the water level had receded hours ago, Jani Khan, another local resident, while showing videos of waterlogged path leading up to Shivala’s Moti Masjid, said: “I have sent this video to the local MLA as well as the corporator, as people are forced to walk through this dirty water, whether during the day or in the evening. When we complained to the MLA, he asked us to send a video on WhatsApp. We have done that as well yet there has been no response.”According to local residents, the narrow road leading up to the mosque, and even adjacent lanes in Shivala colony, is perpetually strewn with sludge due to overflowing drains. “If it rains for 30 minutes or so the water level on the roads in our vicinity will rise to almost one-feet [ankle-deep] and the water will take 3-4 hours to drain out. This means that if it rains incessantly for 2-3 hours then we’ll witness waterlogged lanes for almost 24 hours,” said Waseem Ahmad, a shopkeeper. Waseem Ahmad, a local shopkeeper in Shivala locality. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.“While children miss out on going to school, we are also not able to open the shop. Every now and then we hear of a budget being allocated for some project related to changing the sewage pipelines but nothing happens for real,” Ahmed further told The Wire. As per a December 2014 press release by the Press Information Bureau, following a Partner City Affiliation Agreement between Varanasi and Kyoto in Japan, the Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs had set up an 11-member committee which was supposed to “facilitate action pertaining to modernisation of Varanasi, including upgradation of water management and sewage facilities.” Back in Shivala colony, Mansoor and his wife, Shakeela, stared helplessly at the black sludge removed from an overflowing drain and dumped right outside their house. “They [referring to sanitation workers] came 15 days after we had complained and, while cleaning the drain, left the sludge here only. No other garbage van comes to this lane,” said Mansoor. Mansoor standing next to heap of sludge dumped outside his house in Shivala, Photo: Akanksha Kumar.Sanitation workers do serve residents, but perhaps selectively. For instance, on the day The Wire visited Shivala mohalla, the area in front of the garbage dumping ground had been cleared. However, the smell of freshly decomposing waste lingered and roads had been barricaded to make way for pilgrims visiting the annual Lolark Kund Chhath Mela. The gathering involves a dip in the holy water of the Lolark Kund lake, which, according to local belief, is considered auspicious for those who wish to have a male child.Mansoor’s neighbour, Sanya*, who works at a private company in Lucknow and had come to see her parents in Shivala, told The Wire, “At a personal level, we have to call sanitation workers just to get the area cleaned. Since the overflowing sewage water is almost there in the entire neighbourhood, you will find a patient of viral fever in every household, since stagnant water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes as well.”Forced to stay near a garbage dump in Nirala NagarFor Shashikant Sahu, a garbage and sewage dump near his house turned his life upside down. He decided to battle it out with the authorities for the sake of his elderly parents, who live in Varanasi’s Nirala Nagar locality. Sahu, who earlier worked at a private firm in the United Kingdom, has been staying with his parents and helping them deal with the local municipal authorities as he carries on with his struggle to have the dump yard shifted elsewhere. “For the last 20 years, drainage water has been released on this land plot which I own in Nirala Nagar’s lane number 11. Initially the authorities told us that it is a nullah (drain), following which we filed a complaint with the municipal corporation. In 2013, it was confirmed that this is not a designated site for a drain,” Sahu told The Wire. His father, Surya Narayan Gupta, who relocated to Nirala Nagar in 1998, had been filing Right to Information applications since 2011, trying to obtain official confirmation of whether the neighbouring land was supposed to be an official garbage dumpyard, but to no avail. As a last resort, Sahu submitted a complaint through the Jan Sunwai, or the CM’s Integrated Grievance Redressal System helpline, on January 9, 2026.Garbage and sewage dumping spot in front of Sashikant Sahu’s house in Nirala Nagar. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.A junior engineer responded to the complaint on February 4, 2026, after visiting the site and uploading a geotagged screenshot of the dumpyard online. While disposing of the complaint, the engineer stated: “The land and revenue records do not mention the existence of a nullah at the spot, even though a kuccha nullah has come up at the designated site. Yes, work needs to be undertaken for the construction of drains in this area but permission is needed from other landowners in the area.”The sarkari (government) system, thereafter, chose to hit the pause button after these formalities.“We have been writing letters to different authorities for the last 13 years, be it the corporator or mayor, yet nothing has happened. The assistant municipal commissioner came for an inspection in 2022 as well, and even after that, the problem is still doing the rounds on paper,” Sahu told this reporter. ‘Water logging happens but gets cleared’: BJP mayorOn September 17, as CM Adityanath participated in ‘Ashirwad ka Diya’ programme at Lucknow’s Prerna Sthal and lit an oil lamp urging people to take part in the ‘Rashtra Yagya’ (Hindu ritual), Aman Yadav, a Varanasi resident and member of the Samajwadi Party (SP), also made his own contribution to the event.Standing in ankle-deep sewage water overflowing onto a main street in the city’s Kandwa ward, Yadav, who is also a member of the SP’s Ambedkar Vahini, lit a lamp as another colleague held a poster stating, “Light a diya and celebrate in Kyoto”. The irony of the Varanasi-Kyoto agreement, against the backdrop of the city’s crumbling basic civic infrastructure, was not lost on anyone.Speaking to The Wire about this unusual way of celebrating the PM’s birthday, Yadav said: “We have lodged several complaints regarding this issue in the past. Kandwa ward comes under the constituency of UP cabinet minister Hansraj Vishwakarma, and so the issue of overflowing sewage water raises several concerns. While, on the one hand, people are being told to celebrate by lighting a diya, on the other, local residents are compelled to navigate their way through sewage water on a daily basis.”Vishwakarma is not the only BJP leader facing flak for the city’s crumbling infrastructure. The month of September also witnessed people resorting to sloganeering when BJP MLA Saurabh Srivastava stepped out to inspect a waterlogged area in Varanasi. A typical lane in Shivala colony, filled with sludge from overflowing drains. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.While the murals painted on the walls of the city tell the story of a city known for its ghats and temples, as well as its daily evening aartis (prayers), other scenes tell a different story. Vehicles navigate a pothole in the middle of the road at the Sigra crossing, while traffic snarls around the entry point to the Kashi Vishwanath temple. These, too, reveal gaps in the city’s projection as a Smart City, which even has its own website. A day before Modi’s birthday, Varanasi’s Nagar Nigam office on Sigra road was buzzing with activity in anticipation of the events planned ahead. Inside what seemed like a revamped building, a trophy for securing first position in the 2018 ‘Swacch Survekhshan’ [cleanliness survey by the UP government] was prominently displayed on a side mantel. Photographs of Madan Mohan Malviya and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, associated with the Hindu Mahasabha, were mounted on a separate panel on the wall. Photographs of other freedom fighters, such as Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, featured on another wall, right behind a miniature model of the Nagar Nigam building, which is soon to be renovated.Speaking to The Wire while the evening puja (worship) ritual from the sanctum sanctorum of the Kashi Vishwanath temple was being livestreamed on a TV screen at the office, Varanasi Mayor and BJP leader Ashok Tiwari maintained that “all was well”.Varanasi Mayor and BJP leader Ashok Tiwari along with PM Modi. Photo: Akanksha Kumar.“If you are talking about Kashi, around 1.5-2 lakh tourists visit the place every day. We are not claiming that every corner is spick and span but if some place is still dirty you can let us know. As far as Shivala is concerned, which is near to the Ganga river, there are sewage treatment plants which release effluents into the Varuna [another tributary of Ganga] but if after 20-minutes of rainfall water logging does take place then it also gets cleared in sometime,” said Tiwari, when asked about the problems being faced by the residents of Shivala locality. He denied allegations that the area had been neglected by the civic authorities because it is mostly inhabited by Muslims. Talking about the recent initiative of launching new projects in areas which witnessed water logging this season, Tiwari added, “Our honourable prime minister has given a go-ahead for allocation of Rs 75 crore in a single ward in Shivala locality, another Rs 36 crore for Jangambari, followed by Rs 73 crore in Nagwa and Rs 30 crore in Bangali Tola, to improve the water and sewage pipelines in these areas. Work will begin soon in a few areas where the bhoomi pujan (ground breaking) ceremony has been done.”*Some names have been changed to protect identities. With inputs from independent journalist Akash Srivastava in Varanasi.