As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic abates, the BJP has now decided to focus on next year’s Assembly polls, especially in Uttar Pradesh (UP), with a massive outreach programme involving one lakh party workers
After the BJP and RSS leaders held several round of talks with Ministers and MLAs in Lucknow to prepare the road map for the crucial Assembly polls and assess the political damaged cause by the outbreak, BJP national general secretary Radha Mohan Singh called on UP Governor Anandiben Patel on Sunday.
At the same time, BJP president JP Nadda held discussions with party general secretaries, States-in-charge and Morcha chiefs for two days in New Delhi to review the relief and awareness programme and laid out the road map to intensify efforts in the coming months.
The meeting between Anandiben Patel and Radha Mohan Singh has created more speculation over a possible Ministry expansion in UP which is going to the polls in the next seven months.
Later in the day Singh met UP Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit. Singh, however, described these meetings as a courtesy call.
On possible Cabinet reshuffle, he said, “There are vacancies in the Ministry and they can be filled. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will take a call on these vacant posts at the appropriate time.”
“The organisation and the Government are running like a well-oiled machine. The Government is very popular and there is no reason to bring a change in the party and the Government,” he said.
Three Cabinet-rank Ministers – Home Guard and Family Pension Chetan Chauhan, Technical Education Minister Kamal Rani and Revenue and Flood Control Minister Vijay Kashyap – have died of Corona. Adityanath has so far not allocated their Ministry to other Ministers as additional charge.
UP with 403-members in the State Assembly can have 60 Ministers – including Cabinet, Independent and State Ministers. Earlier there were 56 Ministers with four vacancies. With the death of three ministers Yogi Adityanath can now accommodate seven more Ministers to fulfil the Constitutional obligation.
Singh said that the party had got a good victory in the Panchayat polls and now the district panchayat president elections are to be held. “The Panchayat election process is not complete. Wait till the complete election process is over,” he said when asked about the party’s performance in the Panchayat polls.
About his meeting with the Governor and the Speaker he said that it has been more than six months since he came to UP. “During this time I could not meet any senior leader”, he said.
Last week, BJP’s national general secretary organisation BL Santosh and Singh had visited Lucknow for three days. During their visit Santosh met senior Ministers and both the Deputy Chief Ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya separately.
Meanwhile, in Delhi after the two-day meeting, Nadda on Sunday also asked the party’s ST Morcha and Mahila Morcha to reach out to people with the Central Government’s schemes of Van Dhan and Nutrition for Women and Children.
Kisan Morcha has also been directed to train farmers for Farmer Producer Organisations, according to BJP national general secretary Arun Singh.