2 deputy CM’s with an eye to retain vote base
LUCKNOW: In a bid to ensure that the appointment of firebrand leader Yogi Adityanath as the CM does not backfire, the BJP has assigned the post of deputy chief minister to two leaders to ensure a smooth functioning of its government in the country’s most populous state.
According to political observers, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma’s appointment as deputy chief ministers is part of BJP’s plans to keep its wider voter base intact.
KESHAV MAURYA
The 47-year-old MP, who started as a humble BJP worker, has risen through the ranks to first become Uttar Pradesh BJP chief and now deputy chief minister.
Born in 1967 at Kasiya village in Kaushambi district, Maurya studied Hindi literature at the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in Allahabad. Like PM Narendra Modi, Maurya too used to be a tea seller and a newspaper vendor when he joined RSS. Years later, he became BJP’s convener in the Kashi region, Modi’s parliamentary seat.
As RSS member, Maurya also participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. He was considered close to VHP patron late Ashok Singhal, Pawan Srivastava, media in-charge of BJP’s Allahabad city unit said.
In 2007, he contested assembly polls from Allahabad West seat but finished third. However Maurya saw a dramatic rise within the BJP after becoming an MLA in 2012. Within two years, he took up the challenge to contest Lok Sabha polls in 2014 from Allahabad’s Phulpur parliamentary constituency that BJP had never managed to win. He, however, emerged victorious, bagging the erstwhile seat of Jawaharlal Nehru. Seen as a leader with a strong base among the OBCs and Dalits, in April 2016 Maurya was declared state party chief.
DINESH SHARMA
An old RSS loyalist, Dinesh Sharma, is considered close to PM Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.
Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who shared proximity with Sharma’s father, is believed to have inspired him to enter public life. Soon after BJP’s landslide victory in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Sharma was made in-charge of Gujarat as a “young upper-caste face”. Sharma, 53, it is believed, caught Modi’s attention through his organisational work.
He was made national in-charge of BJP membership drive that helped make BJP the largest political party in world with more than 100 million members before 2014 polls.
Twenty doctoral theses have been completed under Sharma, who also doubles up as a professor at the Lucknow University’s commerce department.
Although he has mostly maintained a low-profile, Sharma courted controversy in 2013, when he blamed westernisation and Bollywood influence for the degeneration of Indian ethos that according to him, led to incidents like the December 16 gang rape.