The temple city on Saturday burst into celebrations as the BJP trumped opposition and emerged victorious in all eight seats here, including the five covered under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency, winning over UP with a heavy majority.

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Modi had camped in the city for consecutive three days in the first week of this month and had launched a series of aggressive campaigns, including road shows, rallies and public meetings, adding fuel to the growing "Modi wave", which poll experts say had paid rich dividends in ousting the opposition here.

Soon after the results declared BJP a winner in all seats here, he thanked people of Varanasi and said he is overwhelmed with the love and trust bestowed upon him by them in a tweet.

As the early trends in BJP's favour started pouring on Saturday morning, jubilant BJP workers and supporters crammed up city streets, some marching in groups and the others whizzing away on bikes, flaunting party flags.

They were seen in huge numbers at the counting venue in Pahariya, BJP office at Gulab Bagh, and the PM's office at Ravindrapuri throwing colours at each other and shouting slogans such as "Jai Shri Ram", "Har Har Modi" and "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" at frequent intervals. Some were seen dancing to the tunes of drumbeats and garlanding big cutouts of Modi that dotted the city's congested streets.

Putting all doubts to rest, the BJP maintained its stronghold in the city beating Congress candidates at the Varanasi South, Varanasi North and Varanasi Cantonment seats with a comfortable margin.

In Varanasi south seat, pegged as the most prestigious seat for the BJP, Dr Neelkanth Tiwari beat Congress candidate and former MP Dr Rajesh Mishra by securing 92,560 votes as against 75,334 votes secured by the latter.

The seat was important for two reasons. One, it had a major chunk of Muslim voters which the BJP pegs as traditional Congress supporters, and secondly, seven time BJP legislator Shyamdev Roy Chowdhury from the constituency, who had a good follower base, was denied a ticket this time.

Experts say the BJP was smart to sense the trouble in time and that's why they planned an aggressive campaign by Modi just days ahead of the polls here.

"This consecutive campaign by the PM for three days strengthened the Modi wave here which played a huge role in turning the dissenting voices in BJP's favour," a professor from BHU and a poll expert said.

"The BJP knew that if they lose this seat, it would be Modi's loss," the professor added.

DNA spoke to several people from this constituency, including tea sellers, betel lead sellers, homemakers among others, a majority of admitted to voted for Modi. Many didn't even remember the name of the local candidate.

"Pura shahar Modimay ho gaya (The city is full of Modi)," they said.

In the last elections of 2012, Roy Chowdhury got 57,868 votes from this seat, as against Congress's Dayashankar Mishra who secured 44,046 votes. The latter had eventually resigned and had joined BJP.

In BJP cantonment, too, the BJP's Saurabh Srivastava defeated the Congress' Anil Srivastava by a huge margin of 61326 votes. The seat was held by the BJP's Jyotsna Srivastava in the last elections who had won with 57,918 votes. Anil Srivastava had come second last time too, with 45,066 votes.

In this seat too, there was some resentment among BJP workers who were upset with the party leadership for promoting just family from here. However, top BJP leaders and union ministers like JP Nadda and Piyush Goyal camped in the city for more than week to pacify the cadre and manage them.

Similarly in Varanasi North seat, the fight was between BJP's Ravindra Jaiswal and BSP's Sujit Maurya. In the last elections, Jaiswal had beat Maurya with a narrow margin of 2,336 votes.

However, this time Jaiswal got 1,16017 votes, the Congress' Abdul Samad Ansari got 70515. The BSP's Sujeet Kumar Maurya, stood a distant third with 32574 votes, indicating that the BSP had lost out on most OBC votes from the constituency, which had gone to the BJP.

"Except for one road show by UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and Congress VP Rahul Gandhi and one rally by Mayawati in the rural Rohania seat, there was only Modi in the city for three days. The high-pitched campaigns at the fag end of the poll season helped them consolidate Varanasi voters," another poll expert said.

The BJP also had a comfortable victory in the other two assembly seats under Modi's constituency --Rohania and Sevapuri, located at the outskirts of the city.

In Rohaniya, a Yadav, Kurmi and Dalit dominated constituency, BJP candidate Surendra Singh -- a Bhumiyar--emerged as the winner with 1.19 lakh votes beating SP's Mahendra Patel who secured 62,000 votes. BSP's Pramod Singh came third even though this was the only Varanasi constituency where BSP supremo Mayawati had campaigned in this election. Interestingly, BJP had secured less than 10 per cent of votes from this seat five years ago.

In his campaigns, the only rural constituency where the PM held a rally was at Rohania. He also visited the ghadwa ghat ashram which has a huge base from the Yadavs, who have been traditional SP voters.

Poll experts say Modi's campaigns at Rohania also split the Yadav voter base, in which the SP suffered losses and the BJP gained tremendously.

In Sevapuri, too, BJP's alliance Apna Dal won the seat with a massive Neel Ratan Singh Patel got 103423 while SP got 54241 Votes.

The BJP also won the three adjoining seats of Varanasi, Ajagara, Pindra and Shivpur, with a heavy margin. In the Shivpur seat, the BJP's Anil Rajbhar got 1,10453 votes while the SP's Anand Mohan stood second with 56194. Kailash Nath Sonkar received 83778 votes while the SP's Lalji Sonkar came second with 62429 and the BSP's Tribhuvan Ram stood third with 52480.

In Pindra, the influential Ajay Rai, also a four time legislator, fighting on behalf of Congress came third. While the BJP's Avadesh Singh won, with 90614 votes, the BSP stood second here with Babulal securing 53765 votes.

BJP leaders, too, admitted, that it is the Modi wave that helped them win.

Dr Tiwari who fought from Varanasi south, said the entire country has seen the good work done in the country under the PM. "People all over the country have faith in him. When they realized that I'm fighting from a seat under his constituency, they would have realized that the PM would not take a wrong decision," Tiwari told DNA.