Varun was aspiring to succeed his mother Maneka Gandhi from Pilibhit, the latter being victorious five out of six times from the Lok Sabha constituency.
With Varun Gandhi threatening to court arrest in Pilibhit on Saturday, the BJP is all set to hog the spotlight under his shadow.
The party high command has already rushed senior leader Kalraj Misra to Pilibhit to mobilise crowds what they wish to turn into a "big event" that could propel this 'other' Gandhi scion into the big 'Hindutva' league.
Evidently, the party appears to be taking resort to a strong Hindutva line for its revival in the state where its share stood reduced to a paltry 10 of the 80 seats at the last parliamentary election.
According to a party spokesman, "Varun would reach Barielly on Saturday morning, and then drive down 58 kilometres in a motorcade to Pilibhit, from where he was named as the BJP Lok Sabha nominee."
Even as the UP police have no plans of taking Varun into custody, lest that turns him into a "hero", the BJP brigade does not wish to leave any stone unturned to ensure his arrest.
Shortly after a criminal case was registered against Varun, his mother Maneka Gandhi, saw to it that the son procured an anticipatory bail to prevent his arrest. Since the law in UP does not provide for an anticipatory bail, the relief was sought before the Delhi high court which granted him the desired bail.
However, no sooner than realisation dawned on the BJP central leadership that Varun could be a big draw in the name of 'Hindutva', that was seen as the sole plank for putting back on the track the party's future in UP that Varun suddenly took a U-turn to announce his decision to court arrest.
Asked what would BJP do if the UP police did not take Varun into custody, a top state BJP leader said, "The kind of crowd that is converging for Varun's show in Pilibhit on Saturday will be enough to provoke the cops to arrest him."
Interestingly, while Varun would be staging the "court arrest" drama in Pilibhit, BJP's prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani would be, almost simultaneously, addressing his first public rally in UP at Maharajganj, where the 'Hindutva' card would be blown to the hilt, with the party's saffron clad Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath already holding much sway in the region.
