Uttar Pradesh: Power corridors rife with speculations over CM if BJP voted back to power

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 7

The mega state Uttar Pradesh continues to be a hotbed of speculations and rumours ahead of the high-stake Assembly elections expected a few weeks from now.

Amid the long-prevailing buzz surrounding the “underlying divide and divisions” between the Centre (Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah) and the state leadership (largely Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath), a BJP leader has made a stunning claim that former bureaucrat and vice president of the state party AK Sharma could be the next chief minister if the party is voted back to power in UP.

According to former Ghosi Lok Sabha MP Harinarayan Rajbhar, Sharma (who is said to have been “handpicked” by the prime minister to set things right during the second wave of Covid pandemic) could be the next CM of UP.

The rumour of the “differences” between the state and the central leadership have been doing the rounds ever since Sharma was dispatched to the state

Referring to the abrupt change of chief secretary in the state, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav added to it saying that the “real battle in UP” was between the BJP at the centre and the BJP in Lucknow.

Yadav also claimed that the posting was a “revenge” of sorts by the Centre for not making AK Sharma the deputy CM.

The buzz became stronger after UP Law Minister Brajesh Pathak was included in the key state election committee announced earlier this week.

Though the list has Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh and general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal, much is being read into Pathak finding a place in it.

Pathak, who is said to have done a lot of work to help people during the second wave of Covid pandemic, was the first BJP leader to visit Lakhimpur Kheri to meet the families of party worker Shubham Mishra and car driver Hari Om who died in the violent incident last year.

Though the inclusion of Adityanath is being seen as yet another endorsement of his leadership, the buzz that “things might change if the BJP returns to power” is getting stronger.

Observers see the committee as an attempt by the BJP to strike caste and regional balance amid allegations of Adityanath’s “pro-Thakur mindset”.

The list includes leaders from the Brahmin community like Pathak and Deoria MP Ramapati Ram Tripathi, Uttarakhand Governor Baby Rani Maurya, a ‘Jatav’ like BSP chief Mayawati, Union minister SP Singh Baghel, Kaushambi MP Vinod Sonkar, Union minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, son of late CM Kalyan Singh Rajveer Singh from the Lodh community and Muzaffarnagar MP and Union minister Sanjiv Baliyan, a ‘Jat’ from Western UP.