UP BJP announces its new state working committee to lay the broader contour of the poll road map for 2027 assembly elections

LUCKNOW: The UP BJP on Monday announced its 712-member state working committee, barely four days ahead of a meeting to lay out the broad contours of its poll strategy for the high-stakes UP assembly elections due early next year.The meeting is expected to be attended by BJP chief poll strategist and Union home minister Amit Shah, besides several other senior leaders, including national general secretary and UP in-charge Vinod Tawde and chief minister Yogi Adityanath.The committee comprises 548 regular members, 30 permanent invitees and 134 special invitees. The new committee has 267 more members than the previous one, announced in 2021 during the tenure of Swatantra Dev Singh, which had 445 members.The list, released by state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary, includes party functionaries and leaders from across the state’s six organisational regions — West, Braj, Kanpur, Awadh, Kashi and Gorakhpur.The Gorakhpur region, Adityanath’s political backyard, has the highest representation in the state executive, with 120 members. It is followed by the Kashi region, which includes Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with 108 members. The Awadh region, which includes Lucknow and Ayodhya, has 104 members, followed by Kanpur with 79, West with 70 and Braj with 67.The 30 permanent invitees include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the two deputy chief ministers, Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak. UP ministers, including Surya Pratap Shahi and Bhupendra Chaudhary, have also been included in the list of permanent invitees. Union ministers Hardeep Puri, BL Verma, Jitin Prasad, SP Singh Baghel, Kamlesh Paswan and Kiri Vardhan Singh are also among them.Three Muslim leaders — former cabinet minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP Minority Morcha national president Basit Ali and BJP MLC Tariq Mansoor — have also been included in the list of permanent invitees.The list of special invitees comprises 134 members, including former national general secretaries Arun Singh and Dr RMD Agarwal. Several UP ministers, including Suresh Khanna, Baby Rani Maurya, Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary, Jaiveer Singh, Yogendra Upadhyay, Nand Gopal Nandi, Vijay Rajbhar and Dara Singh Chauhan, have also been included.Former Samajwadi Party MLA Manoj Pandey, who was recently inducted into the Yogi cabinet, has also been included as a special invitee. Pandey remains an “unattached member” of the UP assembly and is yet to formally join the BJP.The increase in the numerical strength of the new state working committee is seen as a move to accommodate the growing pool of party functionaries who were left out of the recent organisational restructuring.Discontent among party workers who were not accommodated in the organisational set-up or given other positions has been simmering within the state leadership for several days.The formation of the state working committee is seen as a key step towards putting the party’s organisational machinery in place ahead of the meeting. The body is expected to play an important role in translating the leadership’s electoral priorities into ground-level action through the party’s regional and district units.The timing of the announcement is significant, coming amid efforts by the BJP’s state leadership to consolidate its organisation and strengthen its election preparedness against an assertive Opposition, primarily the Samajwadi Party and its ally, the Congress.Sources said the October 30 meeting is expected to focus on the party’s broader electoral blueprint, organisational preparedness and coordination among its state, regional and district-level leadership. With Shah’s likely presence, the deliberations are also expected to carry added political weight.For the BJP, which is seeking to retain power in Uttar Pradesh, the immediate challenge is to ensure that its organisational structure is fully prepared for the electoral battle. The announcement of the state working committee marks an important step in that direction, even as the party prepares for a wider mobilisation drive in the coming months.You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Lucknow | Silver Rate in Lucknow | Bank Holidays in Lucknow | Public Holidays in Lucknow | Lucknow AQI | Weather in Lucknow | Petrol Price in Lucknow | Diesel Price in Lucknow | CNG Price in Lucknow | LPG Price in LucknowStay updated with the latest Lucknow news. Download the TOI App.