BJP veterans pushed out of action in Uttar Pradesh

Lucknow: For someone visiting the BJP state offices in Lucknow, there are no familiar faces around. The veterans – once revered as father figures — are nowhere to be seen and queries about them are met with an unexplained silence.

In the past four years, the BJP in UP has transformed almost completely leaving no room for the elders and those who had built up the party, seat by seat, and were the face of the party at one time or the other in the past decades.

Former UP BJP president Om Prakash Singh, once the tallest OBC leader after Kalyan Singh, is a glaring absence. No one in the party even remembers when he was last seen in party functions.

“He is now old and no longer active,” said a party leader, adding that he is active only in his home town Mirzapur.

Om Prakash Singh

“Why should he go to Lucknow when he is not even invited?” he asked.

Another supporter of Om Prakash Singh said, “He has not been vocal about the treatment being meted out to him because his son Anurag Singh is now a BJP MLA.”

Another party veteran Lalji Tandon, once known as Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s closet aides in Lucknow, has also faded into background.

Mr Tandon’s son Ashutosh Tandon is a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government but the party, apparently, has no work for him.

Mr Tandon is said to be active in social circles and still remains one of the most popular politicians, outside the party, in Lucknow.

Kusum Rai, former BJP MP, is another prominent leader who has been relegated to the wings. During the Kalyan Singh regime, she was a power center in the UP government.

She made it to the Rajya Sabha and maintained her clout in the corridors of power but with the advent of the Narendra Modi regime and the end of her Rajya Sabha term, she got pushed out of the limelight. Her relationship with her mentor Kalyan Singh also snapped which further brought down the chips. Two former ministers, Dr Narendra Singh Gaur and Dr Surjit Singh Dang, were the most recognised faces of the Kalyan Singh government but in the new UP BJP team, they are nowhere to be seen.

Dr Gaur is no longer active even in local politics in Allahabad where new faces have taken over the reins. Dr Dang is on an extended political sabbatical in Mirzapur.

Former Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) president (1997-2000) Ramashish Rai is another BJP leader left out in the wilderness. The former MLC finds no role for him in the state unit. An acolyte of union minister Uma Bharati, he faces an uncertain political future.

Two senior leaders who played a key role in the Ram Temple movement, Vinay Katiyar, founder president of Bajrang Dal, and former BJP MP Satyadeo Singh, have also become inactive in party affairs.

Though Mr Katiyar, occasionally, hits headlines with his controversial remarks, Satyadeo Singh has turned into a virtual persona non grata in the party. The party’s state headquarters does not even have his phone number and the present day leaders evade queries about him.Former state president Laxmikant Bajpai (Meerut) and Shyamdev Roychaudhary (Varanasi) are also missing in action. They were  among the most active legislators in recent years but have now been pushed into oblivion.