Will Varun Gandhi contest Pilibhit as Independent face? Buzz grows as BJP keeps him on tenterhooks

Uncertainty continues to prevail over the ruling BJP’s ticket for the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, which is currently represented by Varun Gandhi.

Pilibhit is the most high-profile among eight seats in the state that will go to the polls in the first phase on April 19, for which the nomination process began Wednesday.

Speculation is rife that the BJP might not field Varun this time, in which case he may contest the election from Pilibhit as an Independent candidate.

The SP camp had earlier sent out signals that it might consider giving Varun ticket if the BJP denied it to him, with party chief Akhilesh Yadav saying, “Our organisation would decide what decision is to be taken about it.”

However, late on Wednesday night, releasing its sixth list of another six candidates, the SP named ex-minister Bhagwat Saran Gangwar as its nominee from the Pilibhit seat.

Former Union minister Maneka Gandhi, Varun’s mother, had contested from Pilibhit successfully as a Janata Dal candidate in 1989. She lost the seat in 1991, but wrested it back in 1996, again on the Janata Dal ticket.

Maneka went on to win the seat as an Independent in 1998 and 1999. She won the seat on the BJP ticket in 2004.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, however, Maneka left the seat for Varun, who won it by a margin of over two lakhs.

Maneka returned to fight from Pilibhit in 2014, winning it by about three lakh votes. In 2019, Varun contested from the seat again as the BJP nominee, defeating SP candidate Hemraj Verma by nearly 2.5 lakh votes.

The other seven UP seats that will go to the polls in the first phase are: Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad and Rampur. Of them, in 2019 the BJP won three seats – Pilibhit, Kairana and