3 top BJP leaders in UP ask partymen to laud Modi-Yogi work

Three top functionaries of BJP’s Uttar Pradesh unit have been tasked with the job of touring the state in the next few days to assuage disgruntled party workers and review the preparations of district units at the ground level for the upcoming assembly polls.

The state BJP functionaries— state party president Swatantra Dev Singh, party's general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal and national party in- charge Radha Mohan Singh are travelling to different parts of the state, holding closed-door meetings with senior functionaries in every district and speaking to MPs, MLAs, district presidents and district prabharis in many of the 75 districts..

The ongoing tour that began after the party celebrated the birth anniversary of Jan Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee on June 23 is likely to end before July 6, his death anniversary.

In all the closed-door meetings, the leaders have emphasised on taking the work of Modi-Yogi to people of the state, and specifically lauded the Centre's decision to make Covid-19 vaccination free for all. They have also asked district presidents to work with each other, reach out to those harbouring "any negative sentiment" about the BJP, activate workers of different morchas and keep reaching out to families whose lives and livelihoods have been hit by the pandemic.

While Swatantra Dev Singh has been assigned the responsibility of districts in Brij and those around Kanpur, Bansal is looking at the Awadh region.and some parts of Western UP. Radha Mohan Singh has been given the responsibility of Eastern UP this time, and the remaining parts of Western UP.

According to a senior functionary, Radha Mohan Singh was assigned to visit the districts of Gorakhpur, Deoria, Kushinagar and Maharajganj in the East, and Shamli, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Hapur in the west.

Swatantra Dev Singh has been asked to meet with party functionaries in Firozabad, Mathura, Mainpuri, Agra, Jalaun, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Banda, Chitrakoot and others. Bansal has been asked to speak to party functionaries in Moradabad, Bijnor, Sambhal, Amroha, Rampur, Hathras, Kasganj, Aligarh, and places around Ayodhya, such as Faizabad, Ambedkarnagar, and Barabanki.

According to a participant who attended Sunil Bansal's meeting with party functionaries in Moradabad on Tuesday, the senior leader has asked the workers "to put all their personal grievances behind and think of the party as a family that needs everyone to work well." "He told us this election is a show of our strength and principles, and we must even get the seats we lost in 2017," he said.

The leaders have also been asking the district presidents if they have put in "corrective booth management" strategies after the party faced a setback in the recent panchayat elections. Both SP and BJP have also been micromanaging their preparations for the zilla panchayat elections slated on July 3.

Among the biggest challenges for the party is also to get its own MLAs to stop being critical of the government. After many MLAs spoke against the State government's handling of Covid-19, BJP and RSS national leaders rushed to UP last month to salvage the situation. But the dissent could not be completely controlled, as even last week State BJP working committee member Ram Iqbal Singh lashed out against the State government claiming the CM was being misled by the bureaucracy.

Swatantra Dev Singh told ET the point of the tours is to collect honest feedback from party cadres and people, and know the issues specific to every district so that they can be raised with concerned ministers later. "In the last few days, we have filled up vacancies, started a state-wide outreach in the form of seva hi sangathan.. the purpose of these tours is sameeksha, a review of all organisational work, besides preparations for the polls, and tell them the combination of Modi-Yogi is best for the State."

While in Western UP the BJP has already started holding meetings to regain confidence among the Jat community, according to senior leaders, it is specifically concerned about the East where leaders of BJP, Apna Dal, SBSP, and others smaller parties have been holding meetings, meeting Samajwadi party leaders and making statements critical of the Yogi Adityanath government.

"The OBCs and Dalits account for around 60% of the population in the region and every party wants their support..Many of our efforts are directed in reaching out to different castes and addressing their disappointment with the State government," a senior party functionary said.