BJP will contest UP 2022 under Yogi’s leadership

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will continue to remain the Chief Minister and the March 2022 state Assembly elections will be contested under his leadership, senior party leaders told The Sunday Guardian, while dismissing speculation that he was facing hurdles from a section of central leaders as “baseless rumours”.

Two BJP leaders, including one national vice president, one former Union Minister who is directly involved in overseeing the party’s affairs in the state, an RSS functionary who is active in the region, and a Lucknowbased close confidant of the CM, separately confirmed to The Sunday Guardian that there was no move to replace Adityanath and install someone else.

“The only political discussion that is happening in the state right now is regarding the Cabinet expansion. You can take it from me that the maximum political development that will take place in Lucknow from today till the election results will be a Cabinet expansion, nothing else. If that happens, 5-6 new members will be inducted, including A.K. Sharma,” the party’s national vice president said.

Both BJP leaders, who spoke to The Sunday Guardian, stated that two recent developments—the threeday visit by BJP national general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh to Lucknow, which came days after the four-day visit by RSS sar-karyavah (general secretary) Dattatreya Hosabale to Lucknow—had led to speculation that Adityanath was facing “problems”.

According to the RSS leader, Yogi’s political capital has two very formidable weapons: his image of being an extremely honest politician and his fixation with a perfect law and order situation. “These two things affect the common people directly. His focus on ensuring that criminals are eliminated from the state has earned a lot of appreciation from the voters as they remember how criminal elements used to have a free run pre-2017. Same is regarding corruption; people know that he does not take a single penny and this policy percolates down to the IAS officers and other government officials. He is the most popular leader that we have in the party after the Prime Minister, which is something that is acknowledged by every leader, big or small,” the functionary said.

“Surely there were issues, like anger among some party MLAS for different reasons. Local RSS functionaries, too, had complaints that their genuine requests were ignored by bureaucrats, etc. These are normal issues