Prominent Kurmi face Pankaj Chaudhary appointed UP BJP chief

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday appointed Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary as its Uttar Pradesh president. A prominent Kurmi face of the party, he became the 15th president of the BJP in the state.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, along with senior BJP leaders, attended Chaudhary’s nomination ceremony held during the party’s “Sangathan Parv” at the BJP state headquarters in Lucknow.

Chaudhary emerged as the sole candidate to file his nomination on December 13, making his elevation a foregone conclusion, even as formal procedures were completed on Sunday.

Chaudhary, a seven-time Lok Sabha MP from Maharajganj and a prominent OBC leader from eastern Uttar Pradesh, has become the party’s state president at a time when Assembly elections are scheduled for early 2027 there. He belongs to the influential Kurmi community, one of the most dominant Other Backward Class (OBC) groups in the state.

He succeeds Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, a senior Jat leader from western Uttar Pradesh, who was appointed state BJP president in August 2022 amid farmers’ protests in the region against the Centre’s now-repealed farm laws.

The decision to appoint Chaudhary as state BJP chief is seen as being shaped by the party’s electoral setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, particularly in eastern Uttar Pradesh, and by concerns over the road ahead to the Assembly elections scheduled for early 2027 as well as the three-tier panchayat polls due in the middle of next year. Against this backdrop, the party has turned to an OBC Kurmi leader from eastern Uttar Pradesh.