Varun may head BJP youth wing
“The move has blessings from the highest level in the RSS,” sources from Nagpur-based outfit told Deccan Herald.
The matter was deliberated several times and a decision is to be taken shortly not only in context of the 10, Janpath, and the Congress party but also in reference to Uttar Pradesh where the BJP “has consistently scored a declining profile”, sources said.
Varun who would be 30 years old in March has been attracting large crowds in the rallies. Some of the constituencies addressed by him are part of the region dominated by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her son and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi.
The move is seen to be the RSS way of projecting the ‘Saffron Gandhi’ versus ‘Congress Gandhi’. However, the RSS support for Varun is not taken kindly by a dominant section in the BJP that had also opposed him during the 2009 polls.
Many dissenting voices in the party see in the move an assertion of the RSS and “return” of the Pilibhit MP after his controversial “hate speech” and subsequent arrest under the National Security Act (NSA).
Sources said the Gandhi scion had interacted with the top RSS leaders and “deliberated on the political road ahead”. Varun’s mother is also a BJP Lok Sabha MP from Aola, a constituency adjacent to Pilibhit.
Former BJP president Rajnath Singh had supported Varun during his arrest by the Mayawati government and is not averse to back him up for the new assignment, sources said.
The incumbent president of the BJP’s youth wing —Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha — Amit Thakkar is from Maharashtra. The Youth wing issue is likely to trigger a new debate in the BJP which is already facing “an identity crisis” in its transition to NextGen.