Bypoll debacle: Maneka wants bigger role for Varun in UP

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s debacle at this week’s bypoll in Uttar Pradesh has once again prompted Union Minister Maneka Gandhi to bat for her son Varun, the party member of Parliament from Sultanpur, who was sidelined by party president Amit Shah soon after the latter rode on to the party’s helm of affairs.

Responding to queries on the party’s poor performance in the bye-elections, Maneka hinted at the need for Varun’s return to the mainstream of the party organisation. She was talking to mediapersons in Delhi on Wednesday, and even though she made it seem like an off the cuff remark, surely it could not have been without reason.

About two months ago, when Varun was stripped of the prized position of national general secretary, it was a loss of face for both mother and son. Maneka and a vocal youth lobby systematically cultivated by Varun himself, had left no stone unturned to project him as a potential chief minister of the state.

In fact, Maneka had gone to the extent of observing at a public meeting , that UP would have benefitted much more if there was a BJP government in the state with Varun as chief minister.

“It would have been better, had there been our government in the state. And it would have been even better if the government would have been run by Varun,” Maneka had quipped.

What, however, had then gone against Varun, was his oft-manifested self-praise which led him to even disallow party volunteers to raise pro-Narendra Modi slogans during his election campaign in Sultanpur.

“Please do not raise slogans for anyone who is not present here,” was how he expressed himself in response to sudden burst of high pitched ‘Narendra Modi zindabad’ slogans. Besides, he also made it a point to repeatedly drive home his claim, “The BJP won in each of the UP assembly constituencies where I campaigned in 2012.”

He also drew much flak on account of the praise he showered on Rahul Gandhi, his cousin , for the development work carried out by the Congress vice president in his neighbouring parliamentary constituency, Amethi.