Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) member of parliament (MP), Varun Gandhi has opted out of the Lok Sabha election 2024 from Pilibhit, according to his close associates.
Varun was dropped by the BJP and replaced with former Congress leader Jitin Prasada to contest from Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit seat in the party’s fifth list of candidates released on March 25.
Pilibhit, the seat in Uttar Pradesh that Varun won twice, goes to polls in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 19. The filing of nominations by candidates for the seat closed on March 27. A report on News18 quoted Varun’s aides as saying that they haven’t received any instructions from the BJP leader to file nominations.
Speculation ends
This ends speculation that Varun would contest the elections as an independent candidate or on any other party’s ticket. Amid the speculation, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had welcomed Varun to join the party, a day after Varun was dropped by the BJP.
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Earlier too, there were reports that Varun might join the Congress. In fact, in November last year, Varun and his cousin and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had met at the Kedarnath temple in Uttarakhand, setting tongues wagging about Varun joining the Congress. In January 2023, Rahul had busted any such speculation.
“Varun Gandhi at some point accepted and imbibed the ideology of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), which he can never accept,” Rahul, the Wayanad MP, had told reporters.
Sources said Varun is likely to campaign for his mother Maneka Gandhi who is contesting from the Sultanpur seat.
Will campaign for mother Maneka Gandhi
Varun, who won the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat in 2009 and 2019, had won the Sultanpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014. The seat was won by his mother, , in 2019.
For quite some time, speculation was rife that BJP was unlikely to field Varun Gandhi again from Pilibhit because of his ‘anti-party’ stand on various issues. The 43-year-old MP has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre and Yogi Adityanath-led state government in Uttar Pradesh. However, since December last year, Varun has not made any statement that could be seen as critical of either government.
Varun is, however, not the lone MP that the BJP has dropped. In the seven lists of candidates that the BJP has released so far, the party – seeking a third term under Prime Minister Narendra Modi- has dropped almost one-fourth of sitting MPs.
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Published: 27 Mar 2024, 07:58 PM IST
