BJP to Focus on Performance as Main Criteria for Ticket in 2022 UP Polls

The BJP, which has begun working on its poll strategy ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, will do a strength and weakness analysis and also prepare individual report cards of the leaders, sources told CNN-News18.

Performance will be the biggest benchmark for getting a BJP ticket, sources said, adding that the party’s top leadership is in favour of individual surveys of MLAs.

As was the case in West Bengal, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP National President JP Nadda will make monthly visits to the big poll bound state to check the poll preparedness.

While rumours have been travelling through political circles about the chief ministerial face of the approaching elections, the BJ seem to have settled one issue: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath remains the unchallenged leader of the BJP in the state and will be leading the party into the UP) elections in 2022.

A tweet by BL Santhosh, the BJP’s National General Secretary (Organisation), last week, praising the CM’s “effective management” of the Covid-19 situation over the last five weeks virtually quashed all rumours about change of leadership in the state.

The BJP’s UP in-charge, Radha Mohan Singh, in fact termed such a theory a “figment of someone’s imagination”. Both of them spent the last two days in Lucknow and took part in closed-door meetings.

All pointers indicate towards Adityanath continuing to enjoy the full backing of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. The assessment at the Centre is that Adityanath is the party’s best bet in UP, as he remains hugely popular because of his governance model, hard work on the ground and clean image — which have earned him the trust of the top BJP leadership.

However, some key changes both in the party unit and the UP Cabinet are on the cards. “A cabinet reshuffle has been pending and some fresh inductions could happen to balance out caste equations further, while some ministers may be brought into the organisation to strengthen the party before the UP polls,” a minister in the UP government told News18.

“The visit by Santhosh is also said to have given an opportunity to state BJP leaders to vent out their grievances to him and speak freely of the challenges before the party ahead of the 2022 state elections. But no more should be read into it as everyone knows Adityanath remains the unchallenged leader, he said.

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