An audio clip in which BJP leader Varun Gandhi is heard berating a man from his constituency for seeking the Pilibhit MP’s help after 9pm has gone viral.
In the 1.24-minute clip, a person called Sarvesh is heard calling the Lok Sabha MP to seek his help. However, in response Gandhi is heard saying, “Main tumhare baap ka naukar nahin hoon (I am not your father’s servant).”
Though Gandhi is heard speaking in a calm voice throughout the brief interaction, his ire is evident as the call was made at an hour that he considers “very late”. At one point he says it is 9.30 pm and at another that it is 10 pm. He then asks the caller to get back to him at a suitable time during the day.
The caller then asks, “You are our MP, if we don’t turn to you then to whom do we turn?” Gandhi then asks the reason for the urgency. “Tumko kya police pakadne aa rahi hai? (Is the police coming to arrest you),” he asks. The caller responds that he is actually calling from the police station before hanging up without giving any further details.
This is Gandhi’s second term as MP from Pilibhit. His first term was in 2009.
Gandhi is no stranger to attracting trouble for his choice of words. During his election campaign in May 2019, he had called his Samajwadi Party opponent a ‘phatichar’ (ragged).
THE WEEK has ascertained that the caller is a resident of Shivaji Colony in Pilibhit’s Sunghadi area. In one room of his residence, he runs a provision store. It is from this shop that the police had recovered 20 bottles of country-made liquor.
There have been complaints against Sarvesh as well for selling country-made liquor and that too at a much higher price than the rate fixed.
An FIR was registered against him at the Assam Road police outpost by the officer in-charge. As per the FIR, Sarvesh was selling the liquor at nine times its price.
Sarvesh was not taken to jail but given bail after the payment of two bonds of Rs 20,000 each. His mother, Urmila, furnished the bonds for him.
