Pilibhit will poll in the first phase on April 19 for which the nomination process began Wednesday
Vibha Sharma
Chandigarh, March 21
Seven days to go for the last day of filing nominations, suspense continues over BJP candidate for Pilibhit and the incumbent MP Varun Gandhi.
Though the buzz is that the BJP may not field Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, in which case he may contest as an Independent or maybe on a Samajwadi Party ticket.
Pilibhit will poll in the first phase on April 19 for which the nomination process began Wednesday.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) on March 20 issued the official notification for the phase according to which the candidates can start filing their nominations for the election at respective district election officers.
The last day of filing nomination is March 27.
The scrutiny will be done on March 28 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 30.
Apparently, the SP had reached out to Varun Gandhi but it seems to have now nominated Bhagwat Saran Gangwar for the prestigious constituency
Varun's mother Maneka Gandhi has contested from Pilibhit multiple times. She vacated the seat for Varun in 2019.
In fact, Varun has won Pilibhit twice—2009 and 2019.
In 2014, he contested from Sultanpur, which was won by Maneka Gandhi in 2019.
The other seven seats that will go to the polls in the first phase in UP include Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad and Rampur.
According to reports, Varun Gandhi’s aide MR Malik has purchased four sets of nomination papers for the forthcoming elections. Agencies also quoted Malik as saying that “Varun Gandhi will be the BJP candidate from Pilibhit”.
Varun Gandhi has been critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre and Yogi Adityanath-led UP government on many issues. Though, of late he has refrained from issuing any such statement.
Speculations are rife that BJP is considering fielding UP state ministers Jitin Prasad or Sanjay Singh Gangwar from Pilibhit. The question remains is it willing to take the risk of missing out on the “popularity factor” of mother-son duo on the seat.
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