Varun Gandhi, the son of Sanjay Gandhi, entered the Lok Sabha in 2009 by winning from Pilibhit.Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury today urged Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Varun Gandhi to join the grand old party, after he was denied a ticket from Pilibhit, his constituency. Varun Gandhi, 44, was replaced by Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada as the BJP’s candidate from Pilibhit. Meanwhile, his mother Maneka Gandhi has been repeated from Sultanpur.
“He (Varun Gandhi) is a strong leader with a clean image, and he has a connection with the Gandhi family. This is why the BJP denied him (Lok Sabha poll) ticket. I think he should come (join Congress), we will be very happy,” Chowdhury , Congess leader in Lok Sabha, was quoted as saying.
Varun Gandhi has not responded to either the BJP’s snub or the Congress’ invitation.
Jitin Prasada, a former minister in the Manmohan Singh-led Congress government and considered one of Rahul Gandhi’s close aides, lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019. He joined the BJP in 2021 and was elected to the UP Legislative Council.
Amid speculation regarding his future political path, the Samajwadi Party (SP) also sent feelers to Varun Gandhi. SP President Akhilesh Yadav said, “Our doors are always open for everyone.”
According to political commentator Swati Chaturvedi, Varun Gandhi made a choice. “I can confirm that @varungandhi80 had a meeting with Prime Minister, Modi last week where he said he would like to part ways “gracefully”. It’s hardly a secret that Gandhi had been extremely uncomfortable with the Modi & Shah BJP who didn’t utilise the 3 term MP in any capacity. When he joined the BJP he was made much off by Vajpayee, Mahajan & Rajnath Singh. Modi didn’t want to have any equation with him,” Chaturvedi wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Varun Gandhi, the son of Sanjay Gandhi, first entered the Lok Sabha in 2009 by winning from Pilibhit. In 2014, he contested from Sultanpur, while his mother, Maneka Gandhi, was fielded from Pilibhit.
When asked if Varun Gandhi would join the Congress, former party president Rahul Gandhi had said that their ideologies don’t match. “He (Varun Gandhi) at some point, maybe even today, accepted that ideology and made it his own. I can never accept that thing. I can definitely meet him, hug him, but cannot accept that ideology. Impossible,” Rahul Gandhi had said last year.
Varun Gandhi has been outspoken in his criticism of the BJP. In 2016, he launched a poster war within the party ahead of a significant BJP national executive meet in Prayagraj (then Allahabad). The posters prominently featured Varun Gandhi alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, with slogans advocating for a corruption-free administration, implicitly positioning himself for a leadership role within the party. Despite warnings from BJP leadership to confine his political activities to his constituency, Sultanpur, Gandhi persisted, which raised eyebrows within the party ranks.
Gandhi’s relationship with the BJP soured further as he openly criticised the Yogi Adityanath-led government in Uttar Pradesh on multiple occasions. He questioned the effectiveness of the government’s strategies, particularly its decision to implement a night curfew during the Covid-19 pandemic. Gandhi’s remarks, seemingly at odds with the BJP’s stance, drew attention to the contradiction between the party’s directives and its actions, citing a note from the BJP-ruled Centre to the Maharashtra government that undermined the efficacy of such measures. His actions not only embarrassed the government but also put the party in an uncomfortable position.
In 2023, Varun Gandhi once again found himself at odds with his party following a tragic incident in Lakhimpur Kheri where eight people, including four farmers, were killed as vehicles associated with Union minister Ajay Misra Teni rammed a crowd of protesting farmers.
While the BJP leadership stood by Teni, Gandhi took to social media to demand accountability and justice for the victims. Subsequently, in the same year, both Varun Gandhi and his mother were dropped from the 80-member National Executive, widely interpreted as a reprimand for his dissenting stance.
Last year, he delivered a veiled jab at Yogi Adityanath, he asked people not to “disrupt a nearby sadhu” as nobody knows “when ‘maharaaj ji’ will become the Chief Minister”. Similarly, in September 2023, he criticised the Uttar Pradesh BJP government’s decision to suspend the license of Amethi’s Sanjay Gandhi Hospital following a patient’s death.
He termed it “resentment against a name (Naam)”. The hospital is named after Varun Gandhi’s father and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi is the chairperson of the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Trust, which runs the Amethi Hospital.