Maneka declines comment on Priyanka's rise

Union minister Maneka Gandhi on Thursday parried a question on her niece Priyanka Gandhi joining national politics of the Congress.

The question was lobbed by media persons at Maneka, wife of late Sanjay Gandhi and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), soon after she concluded her address at a function organised here to mark the National Girl Child Day and came down from the stage to leave the venue.

They asked for Maneka's view on Priyanka's entry into active politics and assuming a larger political role in Congress after having confined herself for decades to only two parliamentary seats represented by Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

The Union minister, who has had an uneasy relationship with Sonia Gandhi family for long, declined to say anything on Priyanka and left the venue with her officials.

Maneka, who holds the Woman and Child Development Ministry portfolio in Modi government, is one of the most eloquent leaders in the BJP. She is also a Lok Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh. So is her son Varun Gandhi—both from the BJP.

Most of the senior BJP leaders have been very vocal in dismissing the possible impact of Priyanka's entry into active politics from Uttar Pradesh.

There is also a buzz in political circles that Varun, a BJP's Member of Parliament (MP), could change his political course as he is not very comfortable in the saffron party for quite some time.

His supporters feel that he is not getting due attention in the BJP.

Varun is known to have maintained a warm relationship with Priyanka.