Express News Service
LUCKNOW: Two months after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the state units of major political parties, including the BJP, Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) remain headless. However, confabulations over the names of prospective state chiefs are on in every organisation as the new appointee would play a crucial role in the accomplishment of Mission 2024.
In the BJP, Swatantra Dev Singh, a prominent OBC face of UP politics, continues to hold the fort for the saffron brigade till a new appointment is made as the party follows the ‘one man one post’ rule and Singh has been inducted into Yogi cabinet 2.0 as the cabinet minister for Jal Shakti.
As per its track record, the BJP goes into the Lok Sabha polls with a Brahmin face helming the party organisation in UP while in the Assembly polls it goes with an OBC face. As per highly-placed sources in the BJP, discussions are on over the probables keeping in mind the caste equations. In the recently-concluded assembly elections, the party got overwhelming support from the Brahmins, Thakurs and SC/STs but a few OBCs, including Kurmis, drifted away from it. One of the tallest OBC leaders of the party and Deputy CM Keshav Maurya lost the election from his traditional seat of Sirathu to another Kurmi leader Dr Pallavi Patel of Apna Dal (Kamrawai). Pallavi Patel had contested on the SP symbol.
While the BJP has already given a message to Brahmins by appointing Brajesh Pathak as deputy CM, the names of some other Brahmin leaders like Satish Gautam, Subrat Pathak, Harish Dwivedi and Mahesh Sharma are doing the rounds for the state chief’s post. On the other hand, those like BL Verma (Lodh), Vidya Sagar Sonkar (SC), Bhanu Verma (SC) are also under consideration as other probables among OBC-SC faces.
In the Congress, which tasted the worst ever defeat in its political history in UP in the 2022 polls, the UP Pradesh Congress committee chief Ajay Kumar Lallu had quit owning responsibility for the decimation as only two Congress MALs could make it to the assembly. Lallu himself lost the election from his traditional Tamkuhiraj seat in Kushinagar. Lallu tendered his resignation on March 15. The Congress has been weighing different options, including appointment of four working presidents along with the main UPCC chief, to revive the party in UP.
Meanwhile, big names like former Rajya Sabha MP Pramod Tiwari, former UPCC chief Nirmal Khatri, Nadeem Javed, PL Punia, Rajesh Mishra and Pramod Krishnam are said to be under consideration for the position.
Similarly, the Aam Admi Party (AAP) had also dissolved its state committee since the conclusion of assembly polls. The party’s UP in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh had dissolved all the district, city committees and various cells. The party workers have been asked to give further push to ongoing membership drive but the decision on the state chief is pending. AAP had fielded candidates on 403 seats and had lost its deposit in 399 in the recently concluded assembly elections.
Even RLD chief Jayant Chadhury had dissolved the party’s working committee on March 14 after the announcement of results of the 2022 assembly polls. This followed a revolt by party state chief Dr Masood Ahmad who had resigned from the party’s primary membership and all the posts leveling charges of ticket sale on both Jayant Chaudhury and alliance partner Akhilesh Yadav during the polls. He had also accused the party leadership of adopting a dictatorial attitude.
The RLD had contested the 2022 polls in alliance with the SP and had fielded candidates in 33 seats. Though the bigger ally SP had spared 36 seats for the RLD, in three seats SP candidates had fought on the RLD symbol.
Reaping the benefit of the alliance and also anti-incumbency against the ruling BJP to some extent in western UP, the RLD took its tally to eight from just one in 2017. The party secured 3.18 per cent votes in 2022.
However, after the resignation of Dr Masood Ahmad, the RLD has yet to name a state chief.
