One of the great mysteries of Narendra Modi's big rally in Kolkata was the silence of Varun Gandhi.
Gandhi is the man in charge of West Bengal. He featured prominently on the posters that covered the city. He was seen on stage. The BJP sent leaders well-known and less-known to rev up the crowd as they waited for Modi's helicopter to land. But Varun, probably the biggest draw after Narendra Modi and arguably Bappi Lahiri, didn't get the spotlight.
File photo of Varun Gandhi
After all, Varun Gandhi is known to be a fiery speaker, far more skilled at working the crowd than his cousin. Perhaps the BJP worried he might get too fiery for its comfort. His remarks about Hindus and Muslims during campaigns have landed him in political hot water before though he was acquitted by the court finally.
In Bengal, with its sizable Muslim electorate, the BJP trotted out every Muslim leader it could find from Shakeel Ansari to Shahanawaz Hussain. Ansari scoffed that Mamata Banerjee tries to woo Muslims by giving stipends to imams and opening madrasahs. "But will the sons of (her ministers like) Firhad Hakim, Javed Khan study there? No, they will study at Don Bosco and Auxilum," scoffed Ansari. He claimed if Muslims wanted more than a Rs 2500 stipend as an imam in a mosque they needed modern education. The politicians on stage worked overtime to give the impression that the BJP would treat Muslims as Indian citizens rather than election time vote banks fobbed off with peanuts.
Varun Gandhi is probably not the BJP's best face for this delicate bit of image management. As Saswati Sarkar observes on the blog CentreRight India, "Many believe that the perception generated by his passionate speeches substantially contributed to BJP's poor electoral performance throughout the country owing to Muslim polarization against it- the hypothesis is yet to be conclusively established."
Varun however has finally broken his silence. And it does not take too much reading between the lines to figure out that he is in a huff.
Even as BJP leaders have been patting themselves on the back for a roaring success in Mamata's own backyard, Varun has graded the rally as merely "okay". He poured further cold water onto the BJP's heated excitement by saying "It is not true that 200,000 plus people turned up at the meeting. The crowd was at the most 45,000 to 50,000." The local daily The Telegraph had pegged the number at 1.5 lakh. Asked to comment on the content of Modi and Rajnath Singh's speeches, the normally verbose Varun chose to pass the ball to state leaders even though he is the vice president in charge of the campaign in West Bengal.
This all sounds more like a giant sulk rather than flaming revolution. But Madhu Kiswar has stirred the pot by tweeting "IE report: Varun Gandhi joins Modi Baiters. In private conversations he never made secret of pathological hatred for Modi.Now battle in open." While Varun has not slammed Modi in public, his actions seem to be speaking louder than words. Saswati Sarkar tweeted "Varun Gandhi is the GS in charge of WB-has not tweeted at all publicising Modi's rally in Kolkata-just tweets about his own rallies,articles." There's a picture of Varun addressing a meeting in Siliguri in West Bengal on his timeline, none of the grand rally in Kolkata.
The BJP's headlong embrace of Varun Gandhi, his anointment as its youngest vice president ever has always been a slightly uncomfortable one, given the party's attack on the Congress' dynastic policies. Sarkar writes on Centre-Right India that Varun's supporters point to his youth appeal and his landslide electoral victory and basically tomtom the fact that he is a better politician than Rahul, that "the BJP has the better Gandhi". But she writes that Modi can deliver far more youth connect than Varun can. Varun's appeal, including his massive victory, ultimately still boils down to the lure of that famous last name, "an accident of birth".
What has Varun accomplished to deserve a general secretary position in BJP within five years of his visible participation in public life? To keep things in perspective, Amit Shah has been declared the same at the age of 50 after (1) successive electoral victories by huge margins in state elections (2) a long stint as a minister in Gujarat (2) key contribution in management of several elections where BJP scored spectacular victories.
Now Varun Gandhi seems all set to be declared the BJP candidate from Sultanpur, his father's old constituency, abutting Amethi and Rae Bareli, represented by the other half of the family. ""The candidature of Varun Gandhi from Sultanpur is virtually finalised. That is why permission has been granted to him to hold a rally. Winning each seat is important for us and Varun's candidature from Sultanpur would clearly swing the seat in our favour," a BJP leader told The Times of India. There's a lot of buzz that Varun could be the BJP's chief ministerial candidate in 2017 though now Modi fans are dubbing him a Trojan horse for shrinking the Kolkata rally to a quarter of the party's boast – jan samudra turned into good sized pond.
On February 11, Varun will hold a rally in Sultanpur. The rally will have only one star speaker – Varun himself. It will be interesting to see if Narendra Modi tweets out his warm wishes for Varun's moment in the sun.
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