Silchar, Jan. 21: Varun Gandhi today wrapped up his whirlwind poll campaign in Barak Valley, appealing to people to replace the incumbent governments in Dispur and New Delhi and vote BJP to power in the ensuing polls.

Addressing a string of eight rallies in Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts, the BJP’s general secretary described it as “still a party with a difference”. He called upon the people to bring about a change to root out corruption.

The BJP’s icon for young India, who had whipped up a controversy by his Hindutva and anti-Muslim tirades during the last Lok Sabha poll campaign in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh, steered clear of the topic as he had done during his recent poll campaigns in Assam. He also refrained from mentioning BJP’s pet issue — influx — in any of his four meetings in Karimganj and Hailakandi districts today.

Although this caught BJP circles in the valley districts by surprise, observers said it was a tactical move aimed at winning over the predominantly Muslim population in the twin districts.

Clad in a white kurta and a woollen chest coat, Varun harped on the urgency of a change in every meeting.

This morning he addressed a rally at the S.S. College ground here, with a surprisingly small crowd of about 1,500 people. The size of the crowd came as a surprise because Hailakandi was once considered a BJP stronghold. The crowd size had varied between 6,000 in Dholai and 2,500 in Silchar in Cachar district yesterday, too. While yesterday’s low turnout had been attributed to the severe cold sweeping through the valley, today’s conditions were not severe enough to deter people from attending the rally.

Reiterating his call for change, he said everywhere the rich had reaped the bounties of progress while the poor had slipping into a vortex of “extreme poverty” because of the propensity of a few in the ruling conglomeration to “plunder the scarce resources without any scruple” in their “mad scramble to become rich in the quickest way”.

Referring to the declaration of assets and income by Congress ministers in Assam, he said, “It was a sham, as all these leaders had meticulously hidden the extent of their personal wealth, which they had garnered in a dishonest way.”

In his identical speeches in every meeting, Varun kept assuring that if his party comes to power, probes would be ordered “to unearth the extent of loot” by all Congress ministers. He also promised the best medical care in even the remotest of areas and loans to the unemployed without any interest burden, “so that they could cease to feel the stabs of poverty”.

Elaborate security arrangements had been made for Varun’s visit. Yesterday, he had also made a brief stopover in Silcoori, where he visited a Shiva temple.