Varun Gandhi. (File photo)

LUCKNOW: Praising one of the Congress stalwarts Jawaharlal Nehru while addressing participats at a youth conclave, BJP MP Varun Gandhi on Friday said, "People think that Nehru became the first Prime Minister and lived a lavish life like a king, full of comfort and luxury. What they don’t know is Nehru spent 15 and half years languishing in jail to become the country’s first PM. If today someone puts me in jail and say that after 15 years, we will make you the PM, I will say, bhaiya maaf karo. aadmi ki jaan hi nikal jaaye (Brother, I regret! In 15 years, one may die)."

As youth, said Gandhi, it is our repsonsibility to understand that he (Nehru) sacrificed his life, family and borne wounds on his body to get country free and this freedom should not be wasted.

Expressing concern on the "freedom of speech" and questioning the process followed by the directorate of advertising and visual publicity (DAVP), Gandhi said, "Their (DAVP) process is totally wrong. It says that we will give you advertisements. I say this should be fixed. But what is happening in states? One of the biggest newspaper is advertisement-less since one year because the state government doesn’t want to give ads to it. I don’t want to name anyone. And remember, this newpaper is the biggest in the state."

Gandhi, with an example of a 73-old farmer in Kozhikode who committed suicide because he failed to pay a bank loan worth Rs 3 lakh which he took for his daughter’s education said, "On one side we have this farmer, KT Joseph and on the contrary, there is liquor baron Vijay Mallaya who has Rs 4900 crore loan and is running free, out of teh country. And there are hardly any chances of him coming back."

Continuing his speech, Gandhi said during freedom struggle, Chitranjan Das, Pt Nehru were left of centre and Lala Lajpat Rai was the right of the centre. Their ideologies were different. "Today, keep your hands on your heart, and answer, do you know the ideologies of politicians?. Take the top 10 leaders tin the country. Do you know what they think about agriculture, labour, foreign policy? You don’t know. Earlier, unless one wrote 100 books and articles, one couldn’t qualify for politics. There was a power of thought then. I am here to nourish this power of thought," said Gandhi.

Calling `politics’ the root cause of all problems, Gandhi called for `fresh’ young faces in politics. "The average assets of MP’s today is Rs 15 crore, and I am one of them. When I became an MP, I was ashamed because half of the MPs were standing in Parliament asking for their salary hike. Out of them, only 2-4% are actually deserving. All other are industrialists who have their own SUVs. I gave a written note to Ms Meira stating that I don’t care whether you increase the salary of MPs, but I will not accept the increased salary. Since 2009, whatever salary I have received, I have silently given it to the families of farmers in UP who committed suicide," Gandhi said.

He added 82% successful young politicians today have political background. "My name is Feroze Varun Gandhi, if my name would have been Feroze Varun Ahmed, or Tiwari, or Singh, or Prasad, I would have also been an audience like you. What is important is that what we have got, whether we can take it forward consistently. Whether we have really earned it, or it has been given to us is really what matters," Gandhi told the youth.

Talking of "elitism" of news which is not giving voice to voiceless, instead, it is empowering those who already have voices, Gandhi said, "When the Salman Khan’s hit and run case was going on, the same day, there was a 17-year-old girl in Bastar who was acquitted. She was sent to jail nine years ago on charges of Naxalism. Inside jail, she was raped 15 times, to the extent that she had to get her uterus removed. No media ever showed this. Because they were busy giving voice to Salman Khan."

