The Daily Telegraph
April 15, 2009

Varun Gandhi is being hailed as a potential leader of the main opposition, the Hindu nationalist BJP, and possible future Prime Minister. That Profile will be raised further when he is released from jail to what is expected to be a hero's reception. He has been held under the National Security Act for reported anti-Muslim comments at an election rally last month.

Since making the speech, Gandhi, 29, has been besieged with requests from BJP candidates throughout the country to speak at rallies in their constituencies and alarmed Congress Party strategists who fear their opponents may finally have a popular youth leader.

His arrival has turned the political landscape into a familiar Indian family drama, with the future leadership of both main parties in the hands of rival wings of the Gandhi family.

Varun is the son of Indira Gandhi's favoured heir, Sanjay, who was killed in a plane crash when Varun was three months old. His mother, Meneka Gandhi, left the Congress fold after falling out with Indira following Sanjay's death.

Meanwhile, the Congress Party leadership is certain to pass to Varun's cousin Rahul, the 38 year old son of the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and his widow Sonia.

"He is an organiser, a good orator, and he really connects with people. He was brought up in a single parent family and has learned everything by himself," said political strategist Rajesh Dixit. "He is his father's son," Dixit said, adding that he had to fight for his ambition and had developed a gritty ambition.

His mother, Maneka, a former BJP culture minister who stood aside in Pilibhit constituency for her son, has campaigned for his release and complained that the local Uttar Pradesh government had been politically motivated in jailing him under the National Security Act, which allows officials to detain anyone they consider a threat to public safety for two years.

Last night she told The Daily Telegraph it was "too early" to tell how far he would go in politics and that for now she was keeping her "fingers crossed" for his release. "Ask me again in a year," she said.