The Pilibhit MP, who praised Husain for his charity, alleged that his paintings had been misread deliberately and suggested that they were worthy of being displayed in a museum.
Gandhi said that "ISKCON establishes gaushalas and earns unlimited benefits for the same from the government, in the form of huge lands."
On being asked what Varun Gandhi would do now, she replied, "Ask him what he wants to do. We will consider this after the elections. There is time."
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Maneka Gandhi on Saturday indicated that her son Varun Gandhi's writings that were sometimes critical of the government may have cost him the party's Lok Sabha ticket from Pilibhit but asserted that he would do very well even without it.
Maneka also exudes confidence of BJP's victory in the upcoming voting in Sultanpur on May 25.
Gandhi is the outgoing Union Minister for Women and Child Development.
"There are other senior leaders who also have not got a place in the executive committee. New people should also get an opportunity. I am aware of my duties and serving the people of my constituency is my first duty," she stressed.
The BJP has fielded Uttar Pradesh Public Works Minister Jitin Prasada from Pilibhit replacing Gandhi.
"My ideology does not match his ideology. I can never go to an RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) office. You can slit my throat, but I will not go. My family has an ideology, it has a thought system," Gandhi said at a press conference on the sidelines of his Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla will lead a function in the Central Hall of Parliament on Tuesday to celebrate the country's rich parliamentary legacy and resolve to make India a developed nation by 2047.
Pitching for her son and Sultanpur member of Parliament, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has said that Uttar Pradesh would have benefited had there been a Bharatiya Janata Party led government in the state with Varun Gandhi as its chief minister.
The Congress accused the BJP-led government of "destroying parliamentary norms" by ignoring the claim of Suresh, a eight-term Lok Sabha member, to the post of the pro-tem Speaker.
What some of our leaders were up to on Wednesday, September 20, 2023.
Maneka Gandhi will contest from Sultanpur and Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit.
A section of BJP leaders is of the view that the leadership may spring a surprise with its choice for the post by appointing someone from southern India.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi on Sunday described farmers, who have been protesting against three farm laws, as 'our own flesh and blood' and suggested that the government should re-engage with them in reaching common ground.
'In the last decade, Parliamentarians had sought for an increase of 400 per cent for their compensation.' 'Have we really earned this massive increment?'
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
Aiming to retain power at the Centre for the third time in a row, the Bharatiya Janata Party while banking heavily on its sitting MPs on Saturday released the first list of 51 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections.
When Union Minister Maneka Gandhi sought to project her son Varun as a possible future chief minister of Uttar Pradesh last Sunday, it was widely seen as an attempt to claim Sanjay Gandhi's legacy. Anita Katyal reports
Union ministers Rao Inderjit Singh and Prahlad Patel, Subramanian Swamy, known for his strong views on a host of issues, Suresh Prabhu, Dushyant Singh, who is the son of former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, Vijay Goel, Vinay Katiyar and S S Ahluwalia are among those who have not found a berth in the new list while Union minister V K Singh is no longer a regular member and has been named as a special invitee.
The 15-year-old elephant is suspected to have consumed a pineapple filled with powerful fire crackers, which exploded in its mouth in the Silent Valley forest.
Some have been cherry-picked to assert the BJP's supremacy over its allies or, significantly, its leaders who charted an independent course in the recent past.
Union ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Thaawarchand Gehlot, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Santosh Gangwar, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, BJP national general-secretary Arun Singh and party MP Maneka Gandhi also visited the hospital to know about his wellbeing.
The BJP's top leadership will drop its MPs found to be facing anti-incumbency, according to its internal surveys -- a pivotal tactic to ensure the party achieves its target of winning 370 seats.
The notable names in the BJP's first list include Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Hema Malini from Mathura, Ajay Mishra Teni from Kheri, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Lallu Singh from Faizabad (Ayodhya) and Mahendra Nath Pandey from Chandauli among others.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
As many as 28 out of 41 sitting women MPs, including Sonia Gandhi, Hema Malini and Kirron Kher, retained their seats in Lok Sabha.
What would Parliament be without these nine ladies?
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Varun Gandhi adds that communists always joke with him and say he is a "communist in the BJP".
Here are some of the political leaders' who await their fate.
The third phase of Lok Sabha elections scheduled for Tuesday will see the maximum number of seats going to the polls in a single phase -- 117 across 15 states and Union Territories. It will also be a test for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which will aim to defend the maximum number of seats at 62. This time the BJP will be tested in its bastion Gujarat -- where polling will be held for all the 26 Lok Sabha seats in the state -- apart from Karanataka, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party had done well in 2014. Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Tuesday.
Personnel of Kerala police and the forest department's Crime Investigation Team, probing the incident which triggered widespread outrage especially on social media, visited the spot and collected evidence, he said, assuring that all concerns raised will not go in vain and justice will prevail and the culprits brought to book.
Congress MP Sushmita Dev said that speeches given by Modi and Shah are also punishable under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code as they "blatantly promote disharmony and feelings of enmity on the grounds of religion and such acts are also likely to prejudice the maintenance of public harmony and tranquility between religious communities".
No BJP president is powerful when the party is in power. Amit Shah is completely dependent on Narendra Modi's clout. He has a protective political immunity and everyone knows its source, says Bharat Bhushan
The elections in this phase are seen as a big test for the Bharatiya Janata Party
The oath taking took place as the House witnessed a virtual slogan-shouting contest between treasury and opposition benches.
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