With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yet to announce its candidate for the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, buzz has been growing over whether the party will reappoint its sitting MP from the constituency , Varun Gandhi. Amid speculation, his spokesperson said on Wednesday (March 20) that Gandhi’s descendant would be the face of Pilibhit’s BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Pilibhit is one of the most prominent seats in Uttar Pradesh which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19. All eyes are now on the BJP and Varun Gandhi.
Let’s take a closer look.
Brief history of the Pilibhit LS seat
Pilibhit, a key constituency in Uttar Pradesh, has been a stronghold of the “other” Gandhi family for decades. Maneka Gandhi, the current BJP MP from Sultanpur, first won the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat in 1989 on a Janata Dal ticket.
Since then, she and her son, Varun, have maintained their hold on this largely rural seat. Maneka lost the Pilibhit seat in 1991, but she won it back in 1996 as a Janata Dal candidate, noted Indian express.
The former Union minister became MP from Pilibhit twice as an independent in 1998 and 1999. She won the seat in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections on a BJP ticket.
In 2009, Varun was fielded by the BJP in the Pilibhit constituency, marking his electoral debut. He clinched the seat with a margin of over two lakh votes.
Maneka returned to fight from Pilibhit in 2014, defeating Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Budhsen Verma by over three lakh votes.
The BJP fielded Varun again in 2019 from Pilibhit, who won the seat with a margin of nearly 2.5 lakh votes.
Will BJP abandon Varun Gandhi?
The BJP has announced candidates for 51 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The delay in declaring candidates for 24 seats, including Pilibhit and Sultanpur, has fueled the rumours.
The BJP’s allies in Uttar Pradesh – Jayant Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal (S) and OP Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) – will contest all five seats remaining in the Lok Sabha.
There is a strong rumor that the BJP may not field Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit this time.
According to a India today report, all state unit leaders of the BJP were against granting a ticket to the Gandhi scion at the party’s central committee meeting.
Varun has spoken out against the Center and the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government over some of their policies in the last few years. This may work against him as the saffron party chooses its candidate for the Pilibhit seat.
Notably, the 43-year-old Pilibhit MP has refrained from making remarks against either government since last December, noted Living mint.
In February, he praised the Narendra Modi-led central government for conferring the Bharat Ratna on former prime ministers Chaudhary Charan Singh and PV Narasimha Rao, as well as agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan.
Recently, he shared the day with local BJP leaders and even congratulated Prime Minister Modi for the development work in Pilibhit.
“In the last few years he (Varun) has been very critical of the Yogi and Modi governments, but suddenly this year he toned down (the criticism) and reposted PM Modi’s tweet about his election victory of 2024 and also thanking him for carrying out the development work in his constituency. All this has not gone unnoticed,” said a senior central BJP leader. The imprint earlier this month.
Sources said The New Indian Express (TNIE) that the BJP top brass is likely to retain Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur. But his son, Varun, could feel the heat, given the BJP’s ‘one family, one ticket’ rule.
According to reports, the BJP may field PWD Minister Jitin Prasad or Minister of State for Sugarcane and Sugar Factories Development Sanjay Singh Gangwar from the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat.
“However, the BJP would not want to take this risk, considering Varun’s popularity in the seat and the fact that he won the last elections by over two lakh votes,” said a saffron party leader. Living mint under condition of anonymity.
Is Varun Gandhi going solo?
Now, rumors are doing the rounds that Varun might contest the Lok Sabha elections from Pilibhit as an independent candidate if the BJP denies him a ticket.
Its representatives on Wednesday purchased four sets of nomination papers – two in Hindi and the rest in English – to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the news agency reported. PTI.
The Pilibhit MP previously denied fighting in Amethi, another high-profile seat in Uttar Pradesh that was a stronghold of the Nehru-Gandhi family for decades until 2019, when Union minister Smriti Irani, defeated Varun’s cousin, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, from the seat.
“(Varun) Gandhi will be the BJP candidate for this seat (Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh),” MP’s spokesperson MR Malik was quoted as saying by PTI.
Speculations further intensified after Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav recently hinted that his party would not be averse to giving a ticket to Varun Gandhi if the BJP dropped him. “Our organization would decide what decision to take on this,” the former Uttar Pradesh CM was quoted as saying.
However, the SP named former minister Bhagwat Saran Gangwar as candidate for Pilibhit seat in its sixth list released late last night.
What will be the fate of Varun Gandhi? The suspense will be over once the BJP announces its list of remaining candidates.
With the contribution of agencies
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