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Party will contest UP polls under Yogi’s leadership, says new state BJP vice-president AK Sharma
In a letter to UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, Sharma also says PM Modi’s popularity continues to be as high as it was in 2013-14
In yet another endorsement of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the party’s new state BJP vice-president AK Sharma has said the party will go into next year’s state assembly polls with Yogi Adityanath at the helm of affairs.
In his letter to UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, he has also said that the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to be as high as in 2013-2014, when the BJP had unseated the decade old Congress-led UPA government at the Centre after sweeping UP.
“In my view, people of UP love Modiji just as much as they did in 2013-14 and this great leader’s name and patronage is enough to win elections,” Sharma said in the missive.
The letter is significant as some of Yogi Adityanath’s ministers have been sending out conflicting signals. The state’s labour minister Swami Prasad Maurya, for instance, had visited the UP BJP office on Monday. Later, while admitting that the party would go into the 2022 UP polls under Adityanath’s leadership, he added that after elections the party high command would decide on who would be party’s face in the state.
The BJP leaders quickly explained that the minister was merely reiterating a standard protocol of parties choosing their leader after elections in a meeting of newly elected lawmakers who often act on the wishes of the party’s high command.
Sharma’s letter was aimed at quelling any further doubts on the subject, party leaders said.
“In the 2022 UP polls to be held under your and chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s stewardship, the BJP would win even more seats than before,” Sharma said in his missive, the timing of which is now being seen as yet another attempt to put speculation to rest about friction over leadership issues.
The letter was sent on Sunday on the eve of BJP general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh’s arrival but shared by the new UP BJP functionary on Monday, soon after a crucial meeting between BJP and RSS leaders and shortly before Santhosh and other leaders of the core committee entered into a meeting with Adityanath.
A former IAS officer-turned-BJP MLC, Sharma’s role in UP has been a subject of intense speculation. Although the buzz about him being made a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government appeared to have subsided after his sudden appointment as one of the 17 vice presidents of UP BJP, the spotlight continued to be on him.
Through most of Monday, media cameras were busy searching for Sharma at the state BJP office and though the former bureaucrat wasn’t seen, his letter made news.
Recalling his roots in the backward Mau’s Kanjha Khurd village and early studies in Mau, Ballia and Prayagraj and his association with PM Modi from 2001 to 2021, he said he had watched Modi’s glorious rise on the global stage from up close and said PM’s popularity remained undiminished. He also said he would do whatever was in his hands to help the party.
“He was recently in Delhi meeting Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad who has since firmed up his alliance with the BJP. He also met a Brahmin body in Delhi,” a party leader said.
Sharma has adopted a community health centre in Ranipur and a primary health centre in Suggichauri, both in his home district of Mau. The step was in keeping with the party’s direction to all ministers, lawmakers and party functionaries to adopt health centres in the state. He has also undertaken the work of revamping the bus station at Mau which is in a dilapidated state.
