Hindutva posterboy now a hot potato for UP BJP
Manjari Mishra, TNN
LUCKNOW: He’s the new villain on the saffron block: Varun Gandhi’s journey from the much-feted ideologue to almost an outcast has been remarkably brief, spanning barely four months in his home state. Suddenly, the saffron camp finds nothing right with its former posterboy of Hindutva.
Charges against him range from purely personal to professional: “He’s arrogant, and egoistical,” says a youth leader. “Zameen par chalna nahin ata hai (he doesn\’t keep his feet on the ground),” claims a senior MLA, who finds him “too westernised”. Another old-timer complains that “the young man needs to realise this is not USA, where one addresses his grandfather by his first name…He could do with a crash course in desi etiquettes and learn to be deferential to his seniors,” he declared.
And then comes Varun’s family background. “This is not Congress party where the surname is enough to catapult you to the top. BJP has a well-defined hierarchy,” said a party functionary, who earlier used to swear by Varun’s “humility despite the Gandhi connection”.
On the other hand, Mayawati government is sharpening its claws for a fresh offensive against the MP. The report of the Forensic Science Laboratory, Chandigarh, maintaining the tapes of his pre-poll speeches were not doctored has come as a breather to the state government. Now, armed with the confirmed proof of Varun’s complicity, authorities may transfer the cases to fast-track court. And this is a battle that Varun will have to fight all alone.