15 years an MP, now ‘ex’, Varun Gandhi’s long wait gets longer

Maneka, who saw her own political ambitions as being thwarted, left her in-laws’ home with Varun. In 1984, she decided to take on Rajiv from the family bastion of Amethi, once represented by Sanjay. Rajiv deployed his wife Sonia to campaign for him.

Again, fate intervened when Indira was killed before the polls. In the sympathy wave that swept the country, the Congress won by what remains the biggest-ever majority in Parliament, and Maneka lost to Rajiv – badly.

Varun grew up against this backdrop, of enjoying the name but not the power of the country’s No. 1 political family. Amethi, meanwhile, passed on from Rajiv to Sonia to Rahul, before BJP leader Smriti Irani defeated him from there in 2019.

The politician

Having cut off ties with the Gandhi family, Maneka drifted slowly towards the BJP. When Varun was 24, she formally joined the party, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the time. The BJP was happy about getting a Nehru-Gandhi of their own. And Varun seemed happier pursuing other passions such as writing, penning in 2000 a collection of poems called The Otherness of Self.

In 2009, the BJP under L K Advani fielded Varun from Pilibhit. The poet-politician showed a hearty appetite for politics, running what was seen as an openly anti-Muslim campaign.

He was quoted as saying at an election rally: “If anyone raises a finger towards Hindus or if someone thinks that Hindus are weak and leaderless, if someone thinks that these leaders lick our boots for votes, if anyone raises a finger towards Hindus, then I swear on Gita that I will cut that hand.”

As BJP leaders such as Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi snubbed Varun, the Election Commission said it would look into the matter, and the BSP government in the state held him under the NSA, Varun claimed that videos of his speeches had been “doctored” to malign him. (In 2013, he would be acquitted in two cases charging him with “hate speech”, after witnesses turned hostile.)

While he faced legal troubles, it also boosted the 29-year-old’s profile. In his constituency, he was greeted with slogans of “Varun nahin ye aandhi hai, doosra Sanjay Gandhi hai (He isn’t Varun, he is a storm; he is the second Sanjay Gandhi)”.

Later, senior BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley would cite the controversy and its repercussions as one of the reasons for the party’s failure to dislodge the UPA from power in 2009.

The maturing

Varun again proved a fast learner, and soon after the 2009 polls, changed his political tune from hard Hindutva to talk about development and poverty. His solo rallies in Uttar Pradesh continued to draw crowds, even when the BJP was still struggling in the state, generating a buzz that Varun was positioning himself as the party’s face in UP.

However, what Varun didn’t realise was that the party itself was changing. As Advani gave way to the Modi era, Varun’s existence as a figure completely outside the Sangathan’s circle of influence became increasingly untenable, even as the surname that once was his and his mother’s calling card lost its sheen.

This coincided with Varun also trying to carve a space for himself separate from the party. In August 2011, he offered activist Anna Hazare his residence when the Delhi Police denied the latter permission to hold a month-long protest at Jantar Mantar as part of his agitation for a Lokpal.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, however, Varun silenced any detractors when the BJP fielded him from a different seat, Sultanpur, and he won.

He continued his statements putting distance between himself and the BJP, for example underlining at a youth conclave in Lucknow in 2016 that Jawaharlal Nehru had spent 15 years in jail before becoming the PM – a statement that stood out given the Modi-led BJP’s constant criticism of the Congress leader.

In 2017, Varun suggested during the Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha that MPs should not determine their own salaries but leave it to an external independent body. He also urged MPs to forgo their privileges keeping in mind the poor, giving the example, again, of Nehru and his Cabinet.

Around the same time, he published a book called A Rural Manifesto on farm distress.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP again shifted his seat, giving him Pilibhit. He won, becoming a three-time MP.

In September 2021, in one of his boldest moves against his party’s government till then, Varun backed the protests against the three controversial farm laws passed by the Centre, calling farmers “our flesh and blood” – with his book giving heft to his words.

When four protesting farmers died in UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri after they came under a vehicle allegedly being used by the son of Union minister Ajay Mishra ‘Teni’, Varun tweeted that “protesters cannot be silenced through murder”, and sought a CBI inquiry.

Months later, Varun was dropped from the BJP’s National Executive.

The ‘other’

While talk keeps arising at intervals over Varun’s possible return to the Congress, the bitterness between the two family branches has so far proved insurmountable. Varun is believed to be on cordial terms with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, but there are reports of differences with Rahul, with whom, Congress insiders say, he used to hang out before the two entered politics.

During UPA days, Varun would tell reporters not to compare him with Rahul, hinting at their age difference and the longer time the Congress leader had spent in politics – which was read as a suggestion by Varun that he was headed for bigger things.

In 2023, asked during his Bharat Jodo Yatra, whose underlying theme was unity and love, whether there would be reconciliation with Varun, Rahul said: “My ideology does not match with his ideology. I can never go to a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh office. For that to happen, you will have to first slit my throat… I can meet him with love, hug him, but I cannot accept that ideology.”

Sonia, who never patched up with Maneka, is also seen as unlikely to push for the cousins to come together – leaving Varun exactly where he first began.

A BJP insider indicated that this is right where the party wants him too. “Denying Varun the ticket from Pilibhit but fielding Maneka from Sultanpur has limited his options. He will have to wait, as his best bet remains the BJP.”