LUCKNOW: The appointment of Panchayati Raj minister Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary as UP BJP chief has come as a surprise for many, especially since Chaudhary is a Jat, the community which commands influence in only five to six districts of Western UP.
Many wonder that at a time when BJP is aiming to win 75 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats from UP in 2024, how helpful it will be for the party to have a state chief, whose community members are in sizable numbers only in a few districts in one region.
BJP appears desperate to win 75 seats in UP, especially after its alliance with Nitish Kumar’s JD (U) in Bihar has ended — a move which could leave an adverse impact on the party’s performance in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the party won 62 seats beating theories of anti-incumbency and predictions. While there were similar predictions for BJP’s poor show in 2022 assembly polls, it not only did well but created a record by becoming the first party in several years to repeat term and CM both. This has given BJP hope and confidence that there was still room to improve its own tally.
Experts believe that Chaudhary’s appointment as UP BJP chief might help the party in keeping Jats in favour of the BJP and could also help in countering Jayant Chaudhary-led RLD’s bid to woo the community in its favour.
Earlier this month, the party appointed Jagdeep Dhankar, a Jat from Rajasthan, as the vice-president of the country.
Unlike in the past, the party, while appointing UP BJP chief, has kept its bigger focus on the leader’s personality and his ability to mobilise party workers across the state instead of the caste he belongs to, many believe.
Chaudhary is UP BJP’s first Jat chief since the party came into existence in 1980.
“Party leadership is of the view that since all the politically significant castes have been accommodated, there was further no need to pick up a UP BJP chief on the basis of caste, but on individual qualities and personality,” a leader privy to the process told TOI.
The focus this time thus was on someone who has experience of leading the organisation and taking party workers along, a top BJP leader said and added that on this count there were two leaders, who fitted the bill. “One was deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya and the other was Panchayati Raj minister Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary,” he said.
There was a bit of drama before the final selection, especially when just a few days ago, Maurya came out with a cryptic tweet that ‘organisation was bigger than government’. It was viewed as his repositioning to head the party in the state for the second time. He had earlier led the party to a thumping win in 2017 assembly polls.
There could be two reasons why Chaudhary was chosen over Maurya. “First, Maurya is also from the East UP, just like CM Yogi Adityanath and secondly bringing back Maurya as UP BJP chief would have unnecessarily led to creation of two power centres,” the leader said.
Chaudhary is known for his loyalty towards the organisation and has a cordial relationship with most of the senior party leaders, including the CM, the two deputy CMs and other senior ministers, another BJP leader said.
Also, he is a man with proven organisational skills, a must in a situation where BJP’s organisation secretary Dharmpal Singh has been appointed recently.
“He has loads of experience as he happened to be Moradabad district president of the BJP and was also West UP BJP president twice before being appointed as cabinet minister in Yogi cabinet. He proved his organisational skills recently during Lok Sabha by-polls in Rampur, which BJP won under him as in charge,” said another senior party functionary.
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