The Bharatiya Janata Party’s rising young star, Varun Gandhi, and party chief Rajnath Singh kicked off a mutual admiration society at Devchara in Bareilly, UP, on Wednesday, with Mr Gandhi hinting Rajnath Singh was the ideal PM candidate for the party while Mr Singh saying Mr Gandhi could be the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate in the next UP Assembly polls.
Both leaders were addressing a “swabhiman rally” at Davchara in a bid to rebuild the party’s lost base in Uttar Pradesh.
This was Varun Gandhi’s first major rally after becoming a national general secretary of the party.
Mr Gandhi, BJP MP from Pilibhit, even compared Rajnath Singh to former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and claimed that Mr Singh, like Mr Vajpayee, had the ability to bring together people of different religions and castes.
“I see a reflection of Atalji in him (Rajnath),” Mr Gandhi said.
“His (Vajpayee’s) thoughts were so great that every child in India remembers his rule... If there’s any individual in the country who has that ability to bring together people of different religions and castes, it’s our Rajnath Singh.”