Lok Sabha elections 2024: Is Varun Gandhi planning to contest Pilibhit as an independent?

As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to announce its candidate for the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, the buzz has grown about whether the party would renominate its sitting MP from the constituency, Varun Gandhi. Amid speculations, his spokesperson claimed on Wednesday (20 March) that the Gandhi scion will be BJP’s face from Pilibhit for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Pilibhit is one of the high-profile seats in Uttar Pradesh going to polling in the first phase on 19 April. All eyes are on the BJP and Varun Gandhi now.

Let’s take a closer look.

Brief history of Pilibhit LS seat

Pilibhit, a key constituency in Uttar Pradesh, has been a stronghold of the “other” Gandhi family for decades. Maneka Gandhi, the current BJP MP from Sultanpur, first won the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat in 1989 on a Janata Dal ticket.

Since then, she and her son, Varun, have maintained a grip over the primarily rural seat. Maneka lost the Pilibhit seat in 1991, however, she won it back in 1996 as a Janata Dal candidate, noted Indian Express.

The former Union minister became Pilibhit MP twice as an Independent in 1998 and 1999. She bagged the seat in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls on a BJP ticket.

In 2009, Varun was fielded by the BJP from the Pilibhit constituency, marking his electoral debut. He clinched the seat by a margin of over two lakh votes.

Maneka Gandhi and her son, Varun, have maintained a grip on the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat for years. PTI File Photo

Maneka returned to fight from Pilibhit in 2014, defeating the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate, Budhsen Verma, by over three lakh votes.

The BJP fielded Varun again in 2019 from Pilibhit, who bagged the seat with a margin of nearly 2.5 lakh votes.

Will BJP dump Varun Gandhi?

The BJP has announced the candidates for 51 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The delay in declaring the nominees for 24 seats, including Pilibhit and Sultanpur, has added to rumours.

The BJP’s allies in Uttar Pradesh – Jayant Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal (S) and OP Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) – will be contesting on the remaining five Lok Sabha seats.

There is a strong buzz that the BJP might not field Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit this time.

As per an India Today report, all state unit BJP leaders were against giving a ticket to the Gandhi scion at the party’s core committee meeting.

Varun has been vocal against the Centre and the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government over some of their policies in the past few years. This can go against him as the saffron party picks its candidate for the Pilibhit seat.

Notably, the 43-year-old Pilibhit MP has refrained from making remarks against either government since last December, noted Livemint.

In February, he commended the Narendra Modi-led Central government for conferring the Bharat Ratna on former prime ministers Chaudhary Charan Singh and PV Narasimha Rao, as well as agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan.

BJP MP Varun Gandhi recently praised PM Narendra Modi. PTI File Photo

Recently, he shared the dias with local BJP leaders and even praised PM Modi for the development work in Pilibhit.

“These past few years, he (Varun) has been highly critical of the Yogi and Modi governments but suddenly this year he has toned down (the criticism) and reposted PM Modi’s tweet about winning the 2024 elections and also thanking him for carrying out developmental work in his constituency. All this has not gone unnoticed,” a senior central BJP leader told ThePrint earlier this month.

Sources have told The New Indian Express (TNIE) that the BJP top brass is likely to retain Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur. But her son, Varun, could feel the heat, given the BJP’s ‘one family, one ticket’ rule.

As per reports, the BJP could field PWD minister Jitin Prasad or Minister of State, Sugarcane Development and Sugar Mills Sanjay Singh Gangwar from the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat.

“However, the BJP would not want to risk this, considering the popularity of Varun in the seat and the fact that he won the last election by over two lakh votes," a saffron party leader told Livemint on the condition of anonymity.

Is Varun Gandhi going solo?

Now, there are rumours that Varun could fight the Lok Sabha polls from Pilibhit as an Independent candidate if the BJP denies him a ticket.

His representatives on Wednesday purchased four sets of nomination papers – two in Hindi and the others in English – to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, reported the news agency PTI.

The Pilibhit MP has previously denied fighting from Amethi, another high-profile seat in Uttar Pradesh which was a Nehru-Gandhi family bastion for decades until 2019 when Union minister Smriti Irani defeated Varun’s cousin, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, from the seat.

“(Varun) Gandhi will be the BJP candidate from this seat (Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh),” the MP’s spokesperson MR Malik was quoted as saying by PTI.

Speculations grew further after Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav recently hinted that his party would not be averse to giving a ticket to Varun Gandhi if the BJP dropped him. “Our organisation would decide what decision is to be taken about it,” the former Uttar Pradesh CM reportedly said.

However, the SP named former minister Bhagwat Saran Gangwar as its candidate for the Pilibhit seat in its sixth list released late last night.

What will be Varun Gandhi’s fate? The suspense will be over once the BJP declares its remaining candidates’ list.

With inputs from agencies