Varun-Yamini marriage miss Sonia Gandhi’s family
VARANASI: Varun Gandhi wed a graphic designer Yamini Roy on Sunday. The ceremony was attended by a handful of people in a temple on the banks of the Ganga here. Kanchi Shankaracharya Swami Jayendra Saraswati also participated.
The marriage took place as per the Sanatan-Hindu customs.With shehnais playing amidst the sound of the conch shells, the ceremony, presided over by six priests, took place between 7.30 a.m. and 9 a.m. The selected gathering included Varun’s mother and Aonla MP Ms. Gandhi and Yamini’s mother Aruna Vasudev.
“The marriage went off very well. I have blessed the couple,” the Kanchi Seer told journalists here.”
Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindutva poster boy, Varun, who is an MP from Pilibhit, is the youngest grandchild of Mrs Gandhi and the son of Sanjay Gandhi.
Nehru-Gandhi scion Varun Gandhi on his wedding dressed in a cream kurta- dhoti with saffron angavastram, tied the nuptial knot at the Kamakoti temple.
Yamini dressed in a traditional way with a pink sari which was gifted by the former Prime Minister and Varun’s grandmother, Indira Gandhi, to her daughter-in-law Maneka 40 years ago. She is from Shantiniketan in West Bengal and studied in Delhi’s St. Stephens College and in France.
“We are very happy the wedding took place in Varanasi. It is the heart of the country. We are very blessed that we got this opportunity,” Ms. Maneka Gandhi, the estranged daughter-in-law of Mrs Gandhi, said.
Ms. Vasudev said: “I am happy to get a son-in-law like him [Varun]…They are also lucky to get a good daughter-in-law.”
Soon after the ceremony, the newlyweds left for a hotel. Later, they took a chartered flight for Delhi.
The media was not allowed inside the temple during the rituals.
During the ceremony people present there includes Bansgaon MP Kamlesh Paswan, Varanasi Mayor Kaushalendra Singh and Bijnor royal family’s Bhartendu Singh. Neither any senior BJP leader nor anyone from Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s family was present. A source close to Varun claimed the BJP MP had met Ms. Sonia Gandhi earlier to invite her for the reception.
Due to the death of Ms. Gandhi’s 77-year-old mother Amteshwar Anand, on February 28, the reception, scheduled for Tuesday in Delhi, was cancelled.
