Late shehnai maestro Bismillah Khan’s family has refused to be partisan to politics even as Varanasi turns hotbed of electoral ambition in the Lok Sabha polls.
He said that some BJP functionaries had suggested that they should be a proposer for Modi when he files the nomination from Varanasi on April 24. He said that he consulted the family and everyone agreed that they should not back one or the other candidate.
Bismillah Khan’s son Zamin Husain Bismillah was quoted saying that their’s was a family of artists who had never indulged in political acts and refused to take sides in the hotly contested constituency.
Varanasi, also known as Kashi and Benares, boasts of about 100 ghats along Ganga River and thousands of galis or alleys throughout the city. A temple or some religious place can be seen at every corner of the city. Bismillah Khan’s name has remained etched in the history of the culturally vibrant city with his music know to have promoted the ‘ganga-jamuni tehzeeb’ and peaceful co-existence among varied religious communities—a tradition many political parties are looking to cash-in on.
It now remains to be seen as to who turns proposer for Modi in Varanasi. In Vadodara, a tea seller and a royal family’s member had turned proposers for Modi when he filed his nomination from the Gujarat constituency.