Bypoll setback: Maneka Gandhi wants Varun Gandhi back to centre stage?

NEW DELHI: Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, who is a Lok Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, today refused to comment on BJP's reversal in the just-held bypolls but suggested in a lighter vein that her son Varun should be brought back to the centre of politics in the state.

"Absolutely not", she said when asked at a press conference here to comment on setback to the party in UP where it lost seven of the 10 seats held by it as well as one belonging to ally Apna Dal to the ruling Samajwadi Party.

"I can't answer a political question here because I am confined to the ministry. But as far as I know, I work really hard and that's not fair," said the Women and Child Development Minister who represents Pillibit constituency in the Lok Sabha.

When asked to comment on the absence of star campaigners, including her son Varun, during the bypolls, she quipped "okay, so now we are just going to bring him back".

Varun, Lok Sabha member from Sultanpur in UP who used to be the star campaigner in the state, has lately been sidelined with new BJP Amit Shah dropping him as General Secretary last month.

Maneka Gandhi had earlier vouched for projecting him as a Chief Ministerial candidate of the state.

Gandhi, who was addressing the press conference to present the work done by her ministry in 100 days, said the poor show in the bypolls was "so sad" as "I work so hard".