eadying for the Assembly polls in five States which are less than six months away, the BJP on Wednesday appointed organisational States election-incharge for them.
The party named Union Ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Bhupender Yadav as poll-heads for Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur respectively. Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been put in-charge of Goa with Union Ministers G Kishan Reddy and Darshana Jardosh as deputies.
Besides key State of Uttar Pradesh with 80 Lok Sabha seats, the BJP will be looking at retaining power in Uttarakhand and Manipur. The Congress has much in stake in Punjab as a ruling party where the AAP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BSP alliance are its main rivals. The BJP is not seen as a major player in Punjab after the exit of SAD from the National Democratic Alliance last year in protest against three farm laws passed by the Modi Government.
The BJP has put its poll-experienced Ministers as in-charge of the four States who are to be backed by deputy-in-charge, again mostly Union Ministers. The maximum focus is on winning UP which has PM’s constituency Varanasi.
Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya who quit her post may throw her hat in the State elections.
The BJP has drafted seven leaders, Anurag Singh Thakur, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Shobha Karandlaje and Annpurna Devi Yadav along with Saroj Pandey, Vivek Thakur, and Captain Abhimanyu - as co-in-charges for the polls in UP.
Reflecting its eagerness not to leave anything to chance in the high-stake electoral battle in UP, the BJP has also appointed organisational in-charges for its six geographical regions.
MP Sanjay Bhatia, Bihar MLA Sanjiv Chaurasia, BJP national secretaries Y Satya Kumar and Arvind Menon, UP leader Sunil Ojha and the party’s co-treasurer Sudhir Gupta will head the western Uttar Pradesh, Braj, Awadh, Gorakhpur, Kashi and Kanpur regions respectively.
West Bengal MP Locket Chatterjee and party spokesperson RP Singh are co-incharges for the Uttarakhand polls.
Union Minister Pratima Bhoumik and Assam Government Minister Ashok Singhal will be co-incharges for the Manipur polls, the party statement said.
Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Meenakshi Lekhi have been named co-in-charges for the Punjab polls along with MP Vinod Chavda.
Meanwhile, Independent MLA and former Minister in the Uttarakhand Government Pritam Singh Panwar on Wednesday joined the BJP in presence of Union Minister Smriti Irani. Panwar is an MLA from Dhanolti in Uttarakhand.