BJP starts cadre mobilisation in UP, reaches out to allies

With less than a year for the assembly elections, the BJP has got the ground moving in UP with state BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh and state BJP general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal meeting party workers and taking stock of the situation, even as Covid cases are coming down.
And, after a long time, the party has reached out to its allies. On Saturday, Swatantra Dev Singh met Apna Dal leader Anupriya Patel at his residence in Lucknow. In the event of a cabinet expansion in UP, one of her party leaders may be made minister, sources said.

A small cabinet expansion is also likely to take place to fill the vacancies and provide more representation to Dalit and OBC communities in the Cabinet. Party leaders refute any claim of a change of guard in the state.

After visiting Bareilly on Sunday, Swatantra Dev Singh told ET: “We have lost our party workers. We want to be there for their families. We want to be there for everyone.”

“All district presidents have been asked to form teams to reach out to families who need help. The government has anyway announced monetary support, and our party workers will make it easy for families to avail themselves of that.”

Singh has started his tour of western and central UP districts that will cover Bareilly, Hardoi, Moradabad, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Shahjahanpur and other areas in the next few days, after which he will go to the eastern parts of the state. Similar meetings would also be carried out by Sunil Bansal. On Sunday, Bansal was in Gorakhpur to conduct a meeting of party workers.

Both Singh and Bansal would hold virtual meetings of all BJP leaders from all the 18 mandals on a regular basis.

The party is also reviewing the performance of existing MLAs, especially those who had raised a voice against the government or administration, in social media. This could form the basis of candidate selection for the upcoming elections.

All government buildings, mainly the health centres and panchayat bhawans across the state are being renovated and painted to show the “government in action”, another functionary said.

At least two leaders told ET that it is very likely that the UP campaign will showcase the Centre’s efforts towards UP’s development and the state government’s implementation of central schemes.