If Ayodhya keeps calm and carries on like the slapped “Vaishya” shopkeeper and Monir Abdi, Tej Narayan Pandey will have a fighting chance.

Provocations are at play, some hiding behind the façade of everyday events.

Two tilak-sporting customers roughed up the shopkeeper over a faulty cellphone charger but the merchant suspects the real reason was the poster of an Urdu couplet he had put up at the counter. Police reassured him he has nothing to worry as his name makes it clear he is a Vaishya.

Abdi, a Muslim leader in Faizabad town, said “some outsiders” had arrived in Ayodhya to “vitiate the atmosphere during the elections”.

Both the shopkeeper and Abdi told this correspondent separately: Ayodhya is careful this time.

If the town holds its nerves, Pandey, the Samajwadi candidate from the Ayodhya Assembly constituency, can avert the split in votes that played a part in ensuring his defeat in 2017. He lost to the BJP by 50,000 votes; the BSP’s Muslim candidate polled 40,000 votes, splintering the anti-BJP vote.

The BSP has fielded a Muslim candidate this time, too. But the candidate is weak, says Pandey, who was a minister when his leader Akhilesh Yadav headed the government.

Which is why Pandey, Abdi and the unnamed shopkeeper have figured out that their best bet is to prevent polarisation on communal lines.

This is the first Assembly election here after the Supreme Court verdict set the stage for the construction of the Ram temple. Armed with such a plank, it should have been a cakewalk for the BJP.

But the saffron camp is showing no such sign — or it doesn’t like taking matters for granted.

At the makeshift Ram temple, Hindu Yuva Vahini activists in saffron jackets chant slogans in favour of the BJP and request devotees standing in queues to say a word or two in support of the party.

The activists of the Delhi unit of the Hindu Yuva Vahini — which carries the name of an outfit originally formed and later disbanded by Yogi Adityanath — hung around at the tail of the queues and chanted over microphones: “Jo Ram ko laye hain, hum unko layenge (We will bring those who have brought Ram).”

Dinesh Agrawal, head of the Vahini’s Delhi unit, said they had been campaigning for the BJP in the Ayodhya Assembly constituency for several days now.

Karnataka minister Prabhu Chauhan, whose state is witnessing a churning over the hijab, visited the unofficial headquarters of the RSS’s Ram temple chapter on Tuesday and showered praise on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath.

Almost none of those making their presence felt here a fortnight before the fifth-phase election on February 27 appears to be local. The signs of attempts at polarisation are hard to miss in the constituency, which straddles the core temple area and Faizabad town. The Adityanath government changed the name of Faizabad district to Ayodhya in 2018. Before that, Ayodhya town fell in Faizabad district. Now, a small old city area goes by the name of Faizabad in Ayodhya district.

Abdi, the Muslim leader, said that in spite of the attempts to vitiate the air, “we are careful not to react. Our focus is to defeat the BJP in the Assembly polls and then in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. For this, we are supporting the Samajwadi Party in 2022 and will back the Congress in 2024.”

“We are alert and will maintain social harmony and defeat the BJP. The only thing that could harm the Samajwadi Party is the perception that it belongs to the goons,” he said.

Around an hour later, the shopkeeper was slapped.

The shopkeeper whispered to this correspondent: “I have never seen these youths in this area before…. I think they misunderstood my religion because I had put up a small poster of an Urdu couplet at the counter. Some people want to create violence today, when the people of this area are celebrating the birth anniversary of Hazrat Ali (the Prophet’s first disciple and son-in-law). But I can say that Ayodhya is careful this time.”

A few hours ago, Chauhan, the animal husbandry minister from Karnataka, made a stop at Karsevakpuram, the unofficial headquarters of the RSS’s Ram temple chapter.

“I have been tasked with campaigning for the BJP in Kanpur but thought I would visit Ayodhya today. I am going for a darshan at the Ram temple…. There is huge appreciation for Yogiji in my state because he has done tremendous development work in Uttar Pradesh and finished the goonda raj,” Chauhan said.

The hijab controversy in Karnataka reached Uttar Pradesh a couple of weeks before Chauhan.

Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya have objected to the use of the headscarf in schools and colleges.

Triyug Narayan Tiwari, a veteran journalist in Ayodhya, said: “Such communal issues don’t appear important to the Hindus in this election. Yogi has done nothing on the ground. He and his government are banking on false claims. There are only two things the BJP has done — constructing the Ram temple and renovating and beautifying Ayodhya railway station.”

“The chief minister had said said Ram Ki Paudi would be cleaned and beautified. Ram Ki Paudi has turned into a dirty, foul-smelling nallah. Yogi had also pledged to build a modern bus terminus in Ayodhya but the fact is that there is still no proper road to even reach the existing terminus,” Tiwari said.

“The chief minister had announced in 2017 that there would be an international airport in Ayodhya but they have not yet started the process of acquiring land. He had said people would enjoy the beauty of Ayodhya from a luxury cruise in the Saryu. But the Saryu doesn’t have enough water throughout the year. The BJP could well pay for the lies of the government. Ayodhya appears careful this time round,” Tiwari added.

Champat Rai, general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust that is monitoring the construction of the temple, waxed eloquent on the grandeur of the upcoming shrine but added he was not concerned about politics.

“We don’t think of politics. My job is to ensure that the Ram temple is constructed on an area of 2.5 acres out of the 70 acres in our possession. A boundary wall with a diameter of 18 acres will be built around the temple. At least 70 per cent will be green area,” he told The Telegraph.

“Nobody has constructed such a temple in India in decades. That is why it is taking time. Our target is to install the idols of Lord Ram, Sita and Laxman in the sanctum sanctorum of the new temple by the end of 2023 and open it for devotees. We may continue other construction work for two-three more years after that,” Rai said at Karsewakpuram.

Tiwari, the veteran journalist, said everything boiled down to elections.

“They have to seek votes for Narendra Modi in the 2024 parliamentary polls and will finish the construction of the sanctum sanctorum and install the idols just a few months before that to cash in on religious sentiments. However, the people seem to have understood this. The people are not too impressed with Akhilesh Yadav because of the large-scale anarchy in the state when he was chief minister from 2012 to 2017, but he might end up getting negative votes as the people are certainly dissatisfied with Yogi,” Tiwari said.

BJP’s Ved Prakash Gupta appeared confident of winning again. “The Supreme Court’s 2019 order in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case went in our favour and the temple is under construction. This is the biggest project in independent India. The majority community voters are united under the BJP and we will win more than 300 of the 403 seats,” he said.