2009 -- India Election -

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<img src='http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090511/images/11varun.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />

Varun at a rally in Pilibhit on Saturday.

His campaign has been resonant with chants of <i><b>“biryani for (26/11 accused Ajmal) Kasab and roti-sabzi for Varun” (in the jails of Mumbai and Etah); fanciful tales of how he was “tortured”; and the “plot” three Muslim MLAs of Pilibhit hatched to “exterminate” Hindus.</b></i>

(Suggestions that the comparison with Kasab’s diet hardly made sense because Varun has been brought up as a vegetarian bring a furious response.)
link<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Satyapal Gangwar, who lost to Maneka in Pilibhit in 2004, said he dumped the Samajwadi Party to support the BJP. “I am Hindutva-minded and I hate Riaz. Even the Yadavs here are Hindutva-waadis and will reject Riaz because he’s a fundamentalist.”

Manu Kashyap, another Samajwadi who quit the party and set up the Revolutionary Army of Youths of former Samajwadis to campaign for Varun, said: “The moment I met Varun, I was convinced he was my leader.”

<b>In the BJP office, everybody assumes Varun has won. But the celebrations have to wait because the party’s preoccupation is to ensure a turnout of “at least 70 per cent” and a victory margin of three lakh.</b>

“He is the real Gandhi because he has not inherited the family’s legacy,” said Sunil Mishra, the city unit president.

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