Will Yogi Adityanath back his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya to be made next UP BJP chief?

Keshav Prasad Maurya, on a routine visit to Gonda, remarked that wherever he went, he made sure to meet party workers and organisational office bearers so that he could better understand issues, challenges and problems within the party.

 

The Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister's remarks are now being examined as a possible precursor to his elevation to the post of the state's party president. The choice of a new party president has been pending for a while. And now, party murmurs have it that this appointment will take place only after a new national president has been installed. 

 

For Maurya, an organizational post is not new. He has been the party's vice president and president in the state. Remember 2017?  The year the BJP rode to power with stunning numbers in Uttar Pradesh? Maurya was the state unit chief then. The victory was, in large part, credited to his organizational skills and his great appeal as the OBC face of the party.

 

But Maurya was not made CM. He got the deputy's berth. Then came 2022, the next Vidhan Sabha election. He lost his traditional seat, Sirathu, in his home district of Kaushambhi. Party chatter has it that he was made to lose. 

 

No one says it openly, but Maurya and Yogi Adityanath have often not seen eye to eye. Yet in 2022, even after the Sirathu loss, he was retained as deputy CM. Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief, left no opportunity to make jibes at his 'weak' status. 

 

In 2024, the BJP faced losses in Uttar Pradesh. A big chunk of 29 seats was lost despite media predictions of a saffron sweep. And Maurya stepped up the ante lamenting that he understood the common party worker's pain of not being seen by the party leadership. It was unspoken, but, Yogi Adityanath's unavailability was at the centre of this lament. 

 

His words to party workers were something to the effect of "Our pain is the same". And he had then gone on to assure them that his doors were always open for them.

 

He has also touched upon another frequent complaint of the BJP ministers. That bureaucrats are so powerful that they do not listen to them, and have also made the chief minister inaccessible.

 

Over the last few days, speculation about Maurya being the next party chief in UP has picked up. His greatest appeal is that he is a foil to Yogi Adityanath. But will that be enough to get him the party's top post in the state? The jury is still out on that one.

India