March 17: Feroze Varun Gandhi’s alleged remarks at Pilibhit have not come as a surprise to many.

A few years ago, a young and perhaps more impressionable Varun had travelled to Nagpur where a briefing on pre- and post-Independence history by top RSS leaders shocked the young Gandhi.

Varun, who had just joined the BJP, reportedly could not get proper sleep for the next few days, unable to stomach what he was told about his great grandfather and politics of that era.

Before that Nagpur visit, Varun had been trying to trace his roots. He made numerous visits to Congress leaders from the Sanjay Gandhi era, but did not find the experience enriching as the leaders he met were polite but cagey. His mother Maneka’s “not-so-pleasant” ties with Indira and Sonia Gandhi are said to have restrained many from sharing Sanjay’s vision and ideas with Varun.

The only Congress leader of some repute and experience who received him warmly was Sitaram Kesri. Dethroned and disillusioned, Kesri saw in Varun a potential challenger to those he blamed for his unceremonious exit.

But before Varun could become a regular visitor to his Purana Qila Road home, Kesri fell in the bathroom and died.

Rahul Gandhi’s entry in politics in March 2004 coincided with Varun joining the BJP.

While the cousins avoided projecting themselves as rivals, their race began in contrasting styles and in opposite sides of the political spectrum.

Varun, several years younger than Rahul, always seemed in a hurry to outshine and outscore his better known cousin who became the Amethi MP. He wanted to enter the Lok Sabha in 2004 but fell short of the cutoff age of 25 by a few months. He tried hard to get a BJP ticket from Vidisha in a 2006 bypoll to place himself on a par with Rahul, so the two could be rated against each other in Parliament. Again, he did not get a ticket.

Like Rahul, Varun sees Uttar Pradesh as his battleground. His MPhil dissertation at the School for Oriental and Asian Studies (SOAS) was on decentralisation, with eastern Uttar Pradesh districts as the case study.

Varun claims he was initially “exercised” over joining the BJP but had no choice. Coming from the Nehru-Gandhi family, he loathed the idea of joining a regional or casteist party. He said while joining the BJP, he made it clear he would never speak against the family or rake up communal issues.

He had created a flutter when he slammed Narendra Modi in Gujarat for his failure to prevent the 2002 carnage.

Then, as now, Varun showed an unpredictable streak that embarrassed the BJP.