After two and a half months of rigorous effort, the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced district presidents for 69 districts on Sunday. However in 29 districts, the election was postponed at the last moment due to internal opposition, factionalism, and pressure from party leaders.
Notably, the district president could not be appointed in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, Varanasi, state election in-charge Mahendra Nath Pandey’s constituency, Chandauli, and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya’s home district, Kaushambi.
Out of the 69 district presidents, 44 are new faces, while 25 have been given a second chance. At least 29 of them belong to dalit and backward castes. However, only five women made it to the list.
The BJP worked tirelessly from Lucknow to Delhi to prepare this team, keeping in mind the upcoming Panchayat elections in 2026 and the Assembly elections in 2027.
The BJP has divided Uttar Pradesh into 98 organisational districts. The election process began in the first week of January, but due to internal opposition and pressure, state election in-charge Mahendra Nath Pandey, state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, and general secretary organisation Dharampal Singh couldn’t declare the district presidents in all districts simultaneously.
This situation is unprecedented for the BJP, where the state and national leadership failed to reach a consensus on district president appointments. According to sources, as soon as the appointments were announced, aspirants flocked to Delhi to lodge complaints against those involved in the election process and rival candidates. The central leadership intervened and ordered the postponement of elections in several districts due to the lack of consensus and unresolved caste equations. In Ambedkar Nagar, there is significant opposition to District President Trayambak Tiwari, while in Barabanki, District President Arvind Maurya faces resistance. In Ayodhya, former MP Lallu Singh opposed the reappointment of the current district president and pushed for his close aide to be appointed.
In a surprising move, regional presidents were kept out of the district president appointment process.
Even on the day of the announcement, regional presidents were not informed about the status of district presidents in their respective areas.
Out of 15 organisational districts in the Awadh region, district presidents were announced for only nine. Appointments were deferred in Ayodhya district, Ayodhya Mahanagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Barabanki, Lakhimpur Kheri, and Sitapur. New district presidents were appointed in four districts, while incumbents retained their positions in five. The new faces include Vijay Maurya in Lucknow, Ravi Mishra in Balrampur, Anurag Awasthi in Unnao, and Mishrilal Verma in Shravasti.
Incumbents who retained their positions include Anand Dwivedi in Lucknow Mahanagar, Buddhi Lal Pasi in Rae Bareli, Ajit Singh Chauhan in Hardoi, Brajesh Pandey in Bahraich, and Amar Kishore Kashyap in Gonda.
Mixed results in eastern UP
Elections were postponed in Siddharthnagar and Deoria. In seven out of ten districts, new faces were appointed, while three incumbents retained their posts. The new appointees include Janardan Tiwari in Gorakhpur district, Devesh Srivastava in Gorakhpur Mahanagar, Dhruv Kumar Singh in Azamgarh, Vinod Rajbhar in Lalganj, Neetu Singh in Sant Kabir Nagar, Ramashray Maurya in Mau, and Sanjay Mishra in Ballia. Among them, Azamgarh district president Dhruv Kumar Singh had previously held the position from 2019 to September 2023. Meanwhile, Ashok alias Sanjay Pandey in Maharajganj, Durgesh Rai in Kushinagar, and Vivekanand Mishra in Basti retained their posts.
The BJP’s struggle to maintain unity and balance caste equations highlights the internal challenges the party faces ahead of crucial elections in the state.
