Sangh Parivar, BJP seek face for UP polls

With crucial Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled early next year, there is a growing demand from the Sangh Parivar cadre that the BJP should go to the polls with a chief ministerial candidate. The issue, it was learnt, came up for discussion between BJP president Amit Shah and senior RSS leader Bhaiyya Joshi in Bhopal on Thursday. Both the RSS and the BJP, it was learnt, will take feedback from its cadre before taking a final call. A majority section within the RSS and the BJP are also against building the entire campaign around Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the fear that the party may meet the same fate as the saffron party did in Bihar.

However, there is a section within the Sangh Parivar which does not want to take the risk of projecting a CM face, as it could further escalate factionalism in the BJP’s state unit and also expose the leadership crisis that it is facing in the state. Even now, it is Union home minister Rajnath Singh who many feel should be the CM candidate if at all the party decides to project a face ahead of the electoral battle.

In Uttar Pradesh politics, caste is a key factor and OBCs are numerically dominant. For the BJP, it is the upper caste, including Brahmins and Thakurs, which is considered its traditional vote bank along with Baniyas. Though it has been desperately wooing Dalits and OBCs, only election results will verify how successful it has been in its efforts.

The BJP did try to balance the caste equation by appointing an OBC, Keshav Prasad Maurya, as its state unit chief. But this change, many feel, will have little impact as Mr Maurya does not have a state-wide appeal.

The BJP’s poll strategists will also have to consider that the other three key political parties — the SP, BSP and the Congress — have their chief ministerial candidates. The BSP has party chief Mayawati, while ruling SP has chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. Congress has also projected former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit as its candidate for the UP polls.