In the run up to the final phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP has been focussing on Prime Minister Modi's constituency Varanasi. But Varanasi has a neighbour that the party wants to win too: Mirzapur, on the other side of the river Ganga. In the 2012 assembly polls, the BJP failed to open its account in the five seats there - the ruling Samajwadi Party holds 3 of them. The factor that favours the BJP here is its alliance with a faction of Apna Dal, a regional party that won the Mirzapur Lok Sabha seat in 2014.
