Charting win, not CM face, BJP’s focus in UP

NEW DELHI: The BJP will try to build a narrative for the Uttar Pradesh elections over the next three months and decide if it should have a chief ministerial candidate

Published on: Jun 16, 2016, 09:38:03 IST

By Kumar Uttam

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NEW DELHI: The BJP will try to build a narrative for the Uttar Pradesh elections over the next three months and decide if it should have a chief ministerial candidate only around September.

Till then, the saffron party will rely on the troika of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Rajnath Singh and party chief Amit Shah to lead their campaign in the state. Simultaneously, it will also carry out quiet surveys to help assess if its campaign strategy struck a chord with UP’s 14 crore-plus voters. The state will go to polls early next year.

Shah intends to touch base with booth-level party workers. PM Modi, on the other hand, will address at least one rally every month in UP. Rajnath Singh, also the Lucknow MP, will travel to his home state a lot more frequently.

“This should give us a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses by September. Our campaign will pick momentum after monsoon and by that time, we will be in a position to take a call on whether or not to project a CM face,” a BJP functionary said.

For now, the BJP’s strategy is to keep the home minister at the forefront of its UP campaign. Singh’s seniority and stature would discourage the chief minister aspirants in the party from creating trouble. It would also give them hope that the party could eventually name them as its chief ministerial candidate, particularly since the home minister has made it known that he wasn’t in the running for the chief minister’s job. However, it will not be an easy choice for the BJP in September as well.

Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi, whom internal surveys have shown as the first choice for the post, is not on the best of terms with the party’s leadership. Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani is an outsider and Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath is too polarising a figure to be asked to lead the party.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kumar Uttam
Kumar Uttam covers politics and public affairs. He has been a journalist for 15 years.

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