Varun Gandhi-Amit Shah cold war heats up in Sultanpur

SULTANPUR: Outside the BJP office in Sultanpur's super market area, a party worker rebukes his colleague for saying before a journalist that the party is missing local MP Varun Gandhi.

As the five assembly constituencies of Sultanpur Lok Sabha seat go to polls on February 27, BJP MP Varun Gandhi is conspicuous by his absence here.

"Varun Gandhi ki zaroorat BJP ko na Sultanpur mein hai, na UP mein (BJP doesn't need Varun either in Sultanpur or anywhere else in UP)," declares the worker.


Inside the office, the BJP district vice president, Vijay Mishra, is more sober. "I don't know why Varun ji is not campaigning in Sultanpur but I'm sure the party is using him elsewhere," he says.

Varun, in fact, hasn't campaigned at all in UP. He won the Sultanpur Lok Sabha seat in 2014 by 1.8 lakh votes but BJP workers are quick to attribute his success to the Modi "wave".

Union minister Maneka Gandhi's son has not been on the best of terms with PM Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah. Some locals say that he was also peeved by the fact that his name was missing from the initial list of lead campaigners for the BJP.

The party did mention his name in the second list of campaigners but, as a local BJP leader who doesn't wish to be named says, it was too late by then.

"It has now become a naak ki ladai (prestige issue) between Varun and party chief Amit Shah," he says.

Shah has taken upon himself to ensure that BJP fares well in the 5 assembly constituencies. As Mishra says, Shah has already addressed 2 public rallies in Sultanpur and is likely to address 2 more before campaigning ends on Saturday.

While many BJP workers seem to believe that the 2014 Modi wave still grips Sultanpur, Varun too, has his own following not just in Sultanpur but also in the nearby region. This manifested in the launch of the Varun Gandhi Youth Brigade in 2014 which sees him as future UP CM.

Varun has worked independently on issues related to farmer suicide and flooding in UP in the recent past, seeking to increase his influence beyond Sultanpur. Speaking at a function in Indore on Wednesday, he said while farmers were committing suicide because they were unable to pay their loan, a defaulter like Vijay Mallya had managed to flee the country.