Sanjay Gandhi was the rightful heir of Indira Gandhi. In fact, it was Sanjay who called the shots in Indira Gandhi regime. He carved an image of an unparalleled notoriety during the emergency but call it fate or destiny, he died in a plane crash making way for his naïve brother. Maneka Gandhi, Sanjay’s widow was driven out of the party by her mother in law owing to her political ambitions. Maneka experimented with Sanjay Vichar Manch and then merged it with Janata Dal and later she joined the BJP. Maneka Gandhi and her son Varun Gandhi have been the political refugees of the country. Varun Gandhi did make some name for himself in the BJP but a cadre based party that BJP is, it promotes leadership based on hard work and talent and not family line and hence it was always a tough terrain for Varun Gandhi.
Once touted as the main Chief Ministerial candidate in UP, Varun Gandhi has been pushed to the sides. He was not even named in the party’s list of star campaigners. And more than anyone else it is because of his adventurisms. Varun Gandhi who lent his own home to Anna Hazare and praised Rahul Gandhi for development of Amethi and was found to have close ties with Arm dealer Abhishek Verma and even went on to undermine PM Modi West Bengal rallies never looked like a loyal party worker. Even in the heated 2014 General Election, Varun Gandhi abstained from attacking his cousins. It is very safe to assume that he has fallen off the trust radar of Amit Shah.
So, what does Varun Gandhi do?
Varun Gandhi went to an event at ‘Vidyasagar School’ in Indore, founded by a Congress leader Satyanarayan Patel. He used the stage to hurl accusations at his own party. Varun Gandhi spoke like a true pseudo-socialist Congress leader when he talked about the ‘growing’ rich poor divide in the society. He even expressed anger about the Vijay Mallya episode where the liquor baron was “allowed” to escape by the current regime. Varun Gandhi read out some excerpts from Rohith Vemula’s suicide letter and told the audience that when he first got to know about the incident, he was shaken to the core and he even cried.
Varun Gandhi even accused Modi government of being unfair towards minorities. He said that minorities constitute over 17% of India’s population but only about 4% of them attain higher education. The government has been a failure in minority development. He also talked about the “growing” farmer suicide in the current regime and termed the government a failure in that area too.
It must be noted that all the aforementioned accusations are favourite jibes of Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi too. Rahul Gandhi also excels in the art of fact-less ranting. 53 assembly seats from 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh will go balloting in the 4th phase on 23rd February and Varun Gandhi’s attack on his own party 2 days before the crucial phase hints at the possibility that Varun Gandhi possibly has tacit understanding with the Congress Party. He might even be thinking of joining his father’s party after the Uttar Pradesh Elections.
