Gandhi family's Gen-X reunion seems to be on cards with Varun Gandhi holding parleys with Congress Gandhis to be back in the family fold almost three decades after his mother Maneka Gandhi left Congress to float her own front Sanjay Vichar Manch in 1983. There has already been a couple of meetings between Varun and Sonia in this regard, where Rahul and Priyanka were also present to discuss the possibility. According to sources, one such meeting was held on Saturday, March 25, at 10 Janpath, where Varun was also present. Though the exact deliberation of this family dinner meeting is unknown, sources say that the present political situation in the country and the changed political scenario in UP were discussed. It is learned that Priyanka had mediated the meeting between Varun Gandhi and the Congress President. On personal terms, the 39-year-old BJP Gandhi is in touch with his older cousin Priyanka and shares a cordial relationship despite belonging to different political spheres all these years.
Actually, Varun Gandhi has been disgruntled after being sidelined from the core team of Amit Shah after he was relived of the charge of party National General Secretary in 2015. He was eying the UP polls to be back in action in his party. Grooming his ambitions in the state, he has prepared a parallel paltan of personal committed workers across each district. However, Varun was almost sidelined in UP. He was neither given any role in the party's campaign strategy, nor did he get any importance in candidate selection. The gulf widened further with Yogi Adityanath being named the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Since Varun and Yogi both belong to the same age group, Yogi becoming the poster boy of BJP in UP has left Varun Gandhi running out of options in his party. In fact, he worked hard to become the Hindutva Face of BJP; his hate speech in 2009 had even landed him in jail. Now, even that image has been shadowed by the saffron-clad CM.
That said, Varun's entry into Congress will not be an easy affair either. The crucial question before the Gandhi family will be about the roles and responsibilities of the new entrant in the league, especially because the party is already struggling for a functional distribution of work between Sonia, Rahul, and Priyanka. Soucres close to Varun say that for now, he wants his political ambitions to be limited to UP, where Congress has also being working hard to find its lost ground. This could pave the way for Varun's entry to Congress. Meanwhile, Maneka Gandhi, who is a cabinet minister in Modi government, has opposed to Varun joining Congress for long. But, with changing time and Varun's political ambitions with BJP seeing a landslide, she has been neutral to her son selecting his future course of action. People close to Varun also have confirmed that his interaction with senior BJP leaders have constrained and in fact, he has been, off late, meeting some associates and strategists close to Rahul and Priyanka.
(DNINDIA)
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