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| Varun Gandhi |
Sept. 26: Varun Gandhi is poised to beat cousin and fellow MP Rahul Gandhi to the altar, and will be the first descendant of Jawaharlal Nehru to marry a Bengali.
A nugget for lovers of political trivia: this will also be the first time since Jawaharlal married Kamala Kaul 94 years ago that a Nehru-Gandhi will wed a Brahmin.
The issue of bride Yamini Roy’s caste is inconsequential for Varun but is laden with symbolism in the politics of the heartland, where the groom-to-be is the BJP member of Parliament from Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh.
The Delhi-based Yamini, who is in her mid-20s, is the daughter of Aruna Vasudev, the founder-president of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema. The family is originally from Santiniketan, where Varun’s late grandmother Indira Gandhi had studied for a while.
Yamini, whose family surname is Roy Chowdhury though she uses only Roy, has her own graphic designing studio, Incarnation, in Delhi. She had trained in the fine arts and graphics at Sorbonne University in Paris after graduating in philosophy from St Stephen’s College, Delhi. The couple are said to share an interest in the fine arts, literature and films.
Varun’s mother Maneka Gandhi would be happy that Yamini is a vegetarian. Maneka, the BJP member of Parliament from Aonla, is an animal rights activist and a staunch promoter of vegetarianism.
That Varun and Yamini were set to marry had been known since June this year, when Maneka and Aruna were seen at a store in Varanasi, buying Banarasi silk saris and lehenga-cholis for the bride-to-be.
Today, Maneka said the marriage would happen before the end of the year but would not give out a date. “Varun will get married to Yamini, who hails from Bengal, this year,” she told journalists in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh.
“Yes, it (the marriage) is on, but I am not too sure if the wedding will take place this year,” Varun, 30, told The Telegraph.
Varun, Rahul, Agatha Sangma, Hamdullah Sayeed and Meenakshi Natarajan are the most prominent singletons among Parliament’s young members. Rahul’s political associate-cum-buddies Milind Deora and Jitin Prasada bit the bullet in the past couple of years.
In Uttar Pradesh, many Congress members privately wish that Rahul, 40, marries a Brahmin because they believe that will shore up the party’s prospects among upper-caste voters.
Indira had married a Parsi while Varun’s father Sanjay Gandhi had chosen a Sikh bride. Varun’s uncle Rajiv Gandhi married the Italian Sonia Maino and their daughter Priyanka tied the knot with Robert Vadra, a Punjabi from the trader caste.
Asked whether Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia might attend his wedding, Varun said: “During Priyankaji’s wedding (in 1997), I sat on one side (of the bride and the groom) while Rahulji was on the other. Both Rahulji and I were active participants in all the ceremonies.”
He added that “we as brothers gave away the bride”, refuting the belief of some that it was Amitabh Bachchan who did so.
“Amitabh was not as close to the Nehru-Gandhis (even in 1997) as the media made it out to be, and was not there (at the wedding) for too long,” Varun said.
Maneka, who has often crossed swords with Sonia, sounded conciliatory on the matter of the Congress president and her children attending Varun’s wedding.
“All members of the Gandhi family, including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, will be invited to the marriage function,” she said. Maneka had stayed away from Priyanka’s wedding.
A friend close to Yamini’s family said the bride-to-be was a connoisseur of traditional Indian wear. “She has a beautiful collection of Kanchipuram, Banarasi and Murshidabad silk saris,” the Delhi-based friend said.
“We have orders to deliver Banarasi saris with heavy zari work to (Varun’s) family by next month. She (Maneka) has asked for embroidered lehnga-cholis too,” a leading sari seller in Varanasi said.
BJP sources said Maneka had hired the best tailors from Lucknow and Varanasi to stitch Varun’s wedding sherwani.
During their engagement period, the couple are expected to visit Varanasi’s temples, as Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan had done in the run-up to their wedding in 2007.
Varun will be hoping that marriage lifts his political fortunes after his infamous anti-Muslim remarks ahead of the last Lok Sabha elections checked his rise in the BJP. Party insiders blame him for the Congress’s comeback in Uttar Pradesh, largely powered by a consolidation of Muslim votes.
Varun had hoped to head the BJP youth wing but the job went to Anurag Thakur, son of the Himachal Pradesh chief minister. Varun has been put in charge of the Assam elections together with party general secretary Vijay Goel.
