Varun at a rally in Pilibhit on Saturday. (Below) Maneka in her constituency Aonla, where Varun was barred from holding a rally on Sunday as the district authorities feared trouble

The “martyr” seems a sure winner, but not his mom.

And hardly anyone, including his party workers, talks about Varun Gandhi in Bareilly, the headquarters of the Rohilkhand region, though it’s just 45km from Pilibhit where the 29-year-old will be making his electoral debut on May 13.

In other words, the aura of “martyrdom” Varun’s party has sought to create after his arrest over an alleged hate speech doesn’t extend beyond Pilibhit, the former seat of his mother Maneka who has switched to Aonla where she faces “formidable” rivals.

But the BJP believes Varun’s detention under the National Security Act has given it a potent poll weapon. It got a boost last week, when an advisory board said the imposition of NSA was “unwarranted” and recommended its revocation.

The party is now looking at the Rohilkhand region as a catchment area and hopes to get all or most of its seven seats, the others being Amroha, Lakhimpur Kheri, Badaun and Dhaurhra.

In Pilibhit, Varun has resurrected the Hindutva ambience that dominated Uttar Pradesh in the late eighties and early nineties.

His campaign has been resonant with chants of “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.

Two of these MLAs are from the Samajwadi Party and one is from the BSP.

A story — district officials dismissed it — of how a girl was nearly raped by boys during a Dussehra fair in 2008 has been cited as the trigger for Varun’s speech against Muslims.

The boys, the story went, were patronised by the BSP legislator and, therefore, escaped being nabbed.

An element of blood and gore was added to the alleged murder of a “chaat” seller who saved the girl from the “rapists”.

Suggestions that the comparison with Kasab’s diet hardly made sense because Varun has been brought up as a vegetarian bring a furious response.

“Such questions are blasphemous,” roared lawyer Avadesh Mishra, who counts himself as a convert from the Congress. “We Hindus have to avenge the arrest because Varun’s defeat will mean the defeat of all Hindus.”

With the Samajwadi Party’s Hafiz Riaz Ahmed in the fray, the communal divide has sharpened.

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.”

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.

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

Some 45km away in Bareilly, a BJP leader spoke a different language.

“Our candidate is more hands-on than the rest. He has organised eye-care treatment for patients from every village at AIIMS at his own cost. He doesn’t discriminate between Hindus and Muslims,” said Dinesh Jauhari, the campaign manager for sitting BJP MP Santosh Gangwar.

Gangwar is up against the Congress’s Praveen Aron, who is gaining considerably from the “good work” done by his wife, Bareilly mayor Supriya.

“For the first time in years, the drains outside my home were cleaned, thanks to Supriyaji,” said Vinay Bhatnagar, a retired government employee who said he would vote for Aron.

In Aonla, 24km from Bareilly, BJP sources said Maneka faced “formidable” rivals in the incumbent MP, Kunwar Sarvraj Singh of the BSP, and Samajwadi candidate Dharmendra Kashyap.

While they have caste equations going for them, Maneka, the sources said, is hoping to ride on the “Varun factor”.