Around Independence Day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could get a new leader to replace its UP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC who is also the state’s deputy chief minister.
Maurya is expected to quit his organisational post in keeping with the party’s one-man, one-post principle.
The post is crucial as the new UP BJP chief will be required to be at the helm till 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks re-election.
It was during Maurya’s tenure that the party won its biggest mandate in UP and hence the party is treading carefully in selecting his replacement.
“Once the new UP chief is selected, Keshavji will devote full time to the government,” BJP chief Amit Shah had said during his three-day Lucknow stay, setting off hectic lobbying for the post.
The party reportedly is interested in zeroing in on either a Jatav, the Dalit caste group to which Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati belongs, or a Yadav, the numerically most significant OBC group to which the state’s main opposition Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav belongs.
By taking lunch at a Yadav worker’s residence in the state capital, Shah seems to have indicated that the party has decided to go for the caste groups to which chiefs of UP’s two main regional players belong. The BJP won over a chunk of non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits in 2017 UP polls.
{{/usCountry}}By taking lunch at a Yadav worker’s residence in the state capital, Shah seems to have indicated that the party has decided to go for the caste groups to which chiefs of UP’s two main regional players belong. The BJP won over a chunk of non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits in 2017 UP polls.
{{/usCountry}}Sources, however, suggested that much will depend on the Modi ministry’s reshuffle when some ministers from UP could be sent to the organisation.
The reshuffle is expected in the second week of August. Organisational changes both in Shah’s team at the centre and in UP are likely that time too.