NEW DELHI : Yogi Adityanath’s meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other top BJP leaders in Delhi are part of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister’s effort to reassert control as he faces unprecedented dissent and a worried central leadership.
This is his first face-time with the Delhi leadership since turmoil started in the UP BJP last month, with a section flagging criticism of the Yogi Adityanath government’s handling of Covid and the impact it may have on the party in polls next year
The BJP brass is deeply worried about the leadership in Uttar Pradesh after receiving feedback from several sources, including MPs, MLAs and state ministers. State leaders of the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), including Dattatreya Hosbale, have also given similar reports.
A three-day review in Lucknow by the BJP’s central leaders BL Santosh and Radha Mohan Singh has also turned up similar views.All reports point at Yogi Adityanath’s inability to take everyone along, say sources.
The visit is assumed to be politically significant as Uttar Pradesh will be going into polls in 2022 and the party is expected to take all steps necessary to hold the fort in the state. Cabinet reshuffle likely in UP Ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections, there is speculation that the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in the Uttar Pradesh will reshuffle its cabinet soon.
BJP has decided to strengthen the party in the state by seeking feedback from its leaders in the wake of outcome of panchayat polls and the murmurs from some sections over handling of the COVID-19 situation. The party has also decided to prepare a strategy based on feedback received from its state leaders and ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government, strengthen the image of the state government and resolve the issues in the state.

These efforts are also aimed at improving the coordination between the party and the government, BJP national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh arrived in Lucknow earlier this week and held one-on-one meetings with some of the ministers and leaders in the poll-bound state. Santhosh was accompanied by Radha Mohan Singh.
The reports also indicate resentment among non-Thakurs (Yogi Adityanath belongs to the Thakur caste), particularly Brahmin leaders, who feel their standing has diminished on Yogi Adityanath’s watch. The saffron-robed Chief Minister is rated as “inaccessible” to MPs and MLAs, and the disenchantment erupted into anger when UP was facing the worst of the second surge of Covid.
Sources say when the UP government was battling criticism and even condemnation on social media and global reports, the differences came out in the open. The Chief Minister, sources say, is carrying documents from various departments to defend his track record and try and convince the leadership that his government did not mismanage the Covid crisis.
No matter how bad it looks, however, the party brass realizes that removing Yogi Adityanath – the BJP’s star election campaigner and one of its most popular faces — is off the table as the party prepares for polls in less than a year. That leaves the BJP with the option of course-correcting though changes in the state cabinet and the organization.The “compromise formula” being worked out between Yogi Adityanath and the national leadership is likely to turn into a negotiation over names.
The central leadership, say sources, is pressing for former bureaucrat AK Sharma to be taken into the UP cabinet. He is counted among PM Modi’s trusted aides. Yogi Adityanath, on the other hand, is reportedly fighting to keep Swatantra Dev Singh as UP BJP president amid buzz that Delhi leaders are considering replacing him with a Brahmin face. Sources say Delhi leaders want to make the Yogi Adityanath cabinet and party structure more “accommodating”. It will also require a fine balance of caste equations within the organization.
(With Agency Inputs).

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