Pilibhit, which will go to polls without a member of the other Gandhi family—Maneka Gandhi or her son Varun Gandhi—as a candidate for the first time in 35 years, will witness an election rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 9.
As this will be Modi’s first election rally in Pilibhit as the prime minister, the BJP is pulling out all the stops to make the event in the high-profile constituency successful. Modi did not address any poll meeting in Pilibhit in 2019 when Varun won the Lok Sabha election as a BJP candidate with 59.34 per cent votes.
Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada, who joined the BJP from the Congress in 2021, is now the party’s pick following its move to deny a ticket to Varun, the sitting MP from Pilibhit.
Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party (SP), which is contesting the 2024 elections in alliance with the Congress, has fielded Bhagwat Sharan Gangwar from the seat. The BSP, on the other hand, announced Anis Ahmed Khan as its candidate from Pilibhit, which goes to polls in the first phase on April 19.
“We are preparing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election rally in Pilibhit on April 9. This will be his first rally here after assuming the office of the PM in 2014. He did not address a rally in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. A festive atmosphere prevails in the Pilibhit constituency ahead of his rally,” said Pilibhit BJP president Sanjiv Pratap Singh.
{{/usCountry}}“We are preparing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election rally in Pilibhit on April 9. This will be his first rally here after assuming the office of the PM in 2014. He did not address a rally in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. A festive atmosphere prevails in the Pilibhit constituency ahead of his rally,” said Pilibhit BJP president Sanjiv Pratap Singh.
{{/usCountry}}Varun has not spoken to media persons after he was denied a ticket. Neither did he accompany the BJP candidate during the filing of his nomination papers, nor has he attended any programme, including the one addressed by chief minister Yogi Adityanath in Pilibhit on April 2.
In a letter to the people of his constituency, Varun, however, said, “Though my tenure as an MP is coming to an end…my relationship with Pilibhit cannot end till my last breath.”
“The BJP has changed its candidates on many seats. The BJP and the ‘lotus’ are in the fray on all seats. The people have been with the BJP earlier. They are with the BJP even now,” said the party’s state vice president, Vijay Pathak.
It may be mentioned that Varun and his mother Maneka have represented the constituency consistently since 1996. Not just in 2019, Varun also won the seat in 2009 with 50.09 per cent votes. Maneka, meanwhile, who is the BJP’s candidate from Sultanpur for the 2024 polls, became a parliamentarian for the first time in 1989 from Pilibhit on a Janata Dal (JD) ticket. She won again as a JD candidate in 1996 with 59.83 per cent votes. She was elected in 1998 (55.99 per cent votes) and 1999 (57.94 per cent votes). She won the seat again in 2004 and 2014.