Priyanka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi may belong to rival parties, but what grabbed eyes this election time in Uttar Pradesh was their absence from the election campaign. Both the cousins skipped the complete campaign for the UP polls this time. While Priyanka did attend just one rally and showed her oratory prowess, Varun, a member of Parliment from Bharatiya Janata Party from Sultanpur, UP was completely absent from the campaign.
Ahead of the campaigning, it was revealed that Priyanka would be a part of the election campaign and would be attending almost all the rallies. Her posters were even used for campaigning in the state. But after the campaign began she was seen only at Rae Bareli which is Sonia Gandhi’s parliamentary constitutional seat. She also was present at the election meeting after Union Minister Smriti Irani pointed out her absence at campaigns and also avoiding public queries. During this meeting, Priyanka slammed PM Modi and said that people need not adopt an ‘outsider'(Modi.) It is as yet unclear why Priyanka was absent from election campaign for Samajwadi Party and Congress alliance in the State.
Maneka Gandhi was quizzed about the absence of her son, for which she answered that he was too busy for campaigning. She said, “Varun (Gandhi) has been very busy. He’s been traveling to speak to students across the country at various campuses.” Though Maneka gave a diplomatic answer, if reports were to be believed, Varun and his followers skipped the campaign as they were miffed with the party’s senior leaders for not selecting him as CM candidate from the State. It also came to light that he was upset as no one from the party came out in his support when allegations surfaced of him being honey-trapped into revealing defence secrets last year. Also, Varun’s name was declared very late by the party as star campaigners.
The question of the curious case of missing cousins arouse questions in the minds of many, but none have answers.
