Days after saying that the foreign origin of his aunt and Congress president Sonia Gandhi was not the main issue before the country, newly inducted Bharatiya Janata Party member Varun Gandhi on Saturday asked people to "establish an India which is of Indian, for Indian and through Indian".

"I had a written speech with me, but I thought if read people would call me a reader, not a leader," he said in another veiled reference to the Congress president at a function to felicitate BJP Maharashtra unit president Gopinath Munde in Mumbai.

It was his first public function after joining the BJP.

He praised the Vajpayee government and asked people to vote for the BJP.

He asked minorities to join the BJP, as the opposition parties had not given them anything except hunger and unemployment.

BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, who was present at the function, said Varun had good knowledge of national and international politics.