Varun Gandhi is a nice chap, hardworking, intelligent, studies a lot, writes books, and he has won the Lok Sabha election three times. The party shou… - Subramanian Swamy

National politics has become devalued today because of casteism, communalism and regionalism. A few seats from one state is enough to launch you nationally.

Last week's measures increasing raising import surcharges on a wide range of industrial products run counter to India's commitments to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to reduce tariffs. Once we have managed the IMF loan negotiations we will get that (approach) reversed.

This family is totally anti-national as far as India is concerned. (but) I must tell you this much: Rajiv Gandhi and I were very, very close friends, extremely close friends. In Parliament when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, he used to sit next to me along the aisle. After he lost office, he and I used to meet at 2 am everyday for two hours. So I know almost everything about the circumstances in which he got married, and what the relationship between the two (Rajiv and Sonia) was. I thought well of Rajiv. He was a great patriot, thought he would make a great Prime Minister if he came back for the second time around, and I supported him. Openly, on the floor of Parliament, I said, he didn’t get the Bofors money, Ottavio Quattrocchi (Sonia’s close friend) got it, and these were proved quite later, too late.