Uttar Pradesh BJP Chairman Swatantra Dev Singh announced the names of the party’s state working committee members, as well as standing and special guests on the evening of March 11. Bearing in mind that it is an election year, the party published a huge list of 445 members. . There are 323 members, 94 special guests and 28 permanent guests, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and around half a dozen Union ministers. All district presidents, district officers and mayors of the BJP are also included in the invited members.
The list was released ahead of the state working committee meeting on March 15 at the Indira Gandhi Pratishthan in Lucknow. This will be a brainstorming session that will outline the strategy for the panchayat elections in April, the 2022 assembly election and the party’s annual programs.
The BJP has given preference to elders in the state work committee. In Varanasi, seven such people were included in the working committee, including former MPP Shyam Dev Rai Chaudhary. Also in Prayagraj, old faces were favored including former minister Narendra Kumar Singh Gaur and former MPP Prabha Shankar Pandey. Dr Rajeshwar Kumar, Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work, Lucknow University, said: “Ahead of the assembly election in 2022, the BJP needs its old guard active as there is a lot of discontent local because of the large number of leaders coming from other parties.This is a strategy to stem disaffection.
BJP state chairman Swatantra Dev Singh also handled caste equations in the state work committee. Former BJP MLC Virender Singh, who has some influence in the Gurjar fraternity in western UP, has been given an important post. He left the SP in 2019 to join the BJP and was a significant contributor to the party’s victory in the Kairana Lok Sabha seat in 2019. His tenure in the MLC ended on January 30 and he was keen to secure a ticket from the BJP , but that did not happen. He has now been appointed as a member of the state working committee to neutralize resentment among the Gurjars. Similarly, with farmers’ organizations protesting against the Center on New Farm Laws, the Jat community is also represented. Thus, Harveer Malik, former UP Western Regional Vice President, former Shamli District President Pawan Tarar, Women’s Commission member Priyavanda Tomar, all have preference in the BJP organization. Likewise, Pramod Atta was appointed as a member of the BJP’s state working committee to maintain relations among the Sainis.
The OBC and programmed castes are also strongly represented. There are over 25 Dalit leaders and over 30 OBC leaders in the working committee. Regionally, there are 58 names from Western region, 64 from Braj, 45 from Kanpur and Bundelkhand, 46 from Awadh, 57 from Kashi region and 53 from Gorakhpur. Rajya Sabha members Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Zafar Islam, in addition to Hyder Abbas Chand and Garul Hasan Rizvi, were also appointed as members, giving representation to Muslims.
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