There appears to be unrest in the state assembly as a result of the BJP’s dismal performance in the recently ended Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, when the party won 36 seats to the opposition’s 43.
Both the BJP’s state cabinet and structure are anticipated to change in Uttar Pradesh. Bhupendra Chaudhary, the party’s state president, has proposed to step down following meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Jitendra Narayan. The state is also anticipated to reorganise its cabinet. The sole addition of ministers to the Cabinet under Yogi 2.0 occurred earlier this year when RLD and SBSP joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). More underprivileged people and those from regions where the BJP suffered defeats in 2024 might also be represented.
Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister, and Keshav Prasad Maurya, his deputy, are rumoured to be at odds, and the central BJP has instructed state leaders to put an end to their public sparring and concentrate on the ten bypolls that are coming up. On Wednesday, the chief minister met with ministers to discuss the ten upcoming by-elections. However, neither Maurya nor Brijesh Pathak, the deputy chief ministers, attended the meeting.
When Maurya missed several cabinet sessions presided over by Adityanath over the previous month, rumours of backstabbing amongst the leaders started to circulate in the political community.
The deputy CM added fuel to fire when he said at a BJP meeting in Lucknow — where Yogi Adityanath, Pathak and around 3,500 delegates were present — that “no government is bigger than the organisation (sangathan)”. “No one is bigger than the ‘sangathan’. We are proud of our workers,” he said.
The statement expressed the opinion of some BJP officials who believed that bureaucracy in UP was more important than the BJP itself. This was mentioned as one of the reasons why BJP members did not campaign vigorously in the most recent Uttar Pradesh elections.
Maurya’s claim has been supported by NDA supporter Sanjay Nishad, who claims that the BJP’s dismal performance in the state is due to the officers’ affiliation with the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.
Tuesday’s meeting between Maurya and BJP chief JP Nadda was a damage-control exercise. The agenda for the second meeting between the leaders in the previous 48 hours included the BJP’s approach for the next by-elections and the party’s dismal showing in the recent Lok Sabha polls. Prior to that, on July 14, while Nadda was in Lucknow chairing the state executive meeting, the deputy chief minister met with him.
Taking pot-shots at the BJP, Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said: “In the heat of BJP’s fight for power, governance and administration in UP has been put on the back burner…BJP is sinking in the quagmire of internal conflicts.”
