Varanasi Ram Madhav (born 22 August 1964) is an Indian politician who served as the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Additionally, he serves as a member of the Board of Governors at India Foundation, a think tank based in New Delhi that focuses on the issues, challenges, and opportunities of Indian polity.

[9] During his tenure, Madhav is credited with playing a significant role in the rise of the BJP in North East India and in building alliances with regional parties.

[18] This phrase sparked controversy, with Madhav later explaining it as a "slip of the tongue" or cross-linguistic error and clarifying that it was a general figure of speech in Hindi, where the word "aapka" (your) is commonly used in such discussions and not meant to target any individual, including Hasan.

However, Hasan's decision to amplify the incident by discussing it on social media was seen as unprofessional by some observers, as it played into the controversy rather than addressing the context of the remark.