By IANS,
New Delhi : With mediapersons going berserk trying to get hold of Varun Gandhi, a 22-year-old youth sat quietly waiting to get an audience with him or even his mother and five-time MP Maneka Gandhi at her Delhi residence Thursday.
Guddu, a shop owner, had come from Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh to meet the mother-son duo to seek help following a theft in his shop. Pilibhit is the constituency that Maneka Gandhi has carefully nurtured for two decades and has now vacated for Varun to contest as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate.
However, thanks to the media circus over Varun after he allegedly made communally inflammatory speeches there, Guddu was not able to meet the two till late afternoon.
He hadn’t eaten anything since morning, but vowed he would not move an inch. “I am determined to meet them even if takes hours. If they don’t meet me, I will not vote for them and will tell others too.”
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Hard-hitting Varun vs softspoken Rahul
With Varun Gandhi’s alleged communal tirade fetching him unprecedented publicity, some leaders of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can’t stop comparing him with his more famous cousin Rahul Gandhi.
“Let’s send the hard-hitting Varun after Rahul,” quipped one at the party office, even though the BJP has officially distanced itself from Varun’s alleged hate speech against Muslims in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh.
Said another party leader: “Let Varun tackle Rahul.” Otherwise considered a political novice, Varun certainly seems to have become a recognised face overnight after the controversy. Rahul on the other hand is known to be soft-spoken.
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Advani and Rahul – posterboys both
He may be 81, but the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) L.K. Advani can sure be called a posterboy. At least going by the huge hoardings his party has put up ahead of the general elections.
Several hoardings have come up at crossings in the national capital in the last few days. They read, “Mazboot Neta, Nirnayak Sarkar (strong leader, decisive government)” – along with images of the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Advani.
As for the ruling Congress, its earlier hoardings boasting of the government’s achievements in the last five years had photographs of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Now more and more blowups of young party general secretary and MP Rahul Gandhi are taking over.