BJP top brass talk strategy after Yogi-Modi meet

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief J P Nadda, concluding his two-day engagements in Delhi that made headlines and fuelled much speculation of a rift with the Centre.

Following Adityanath's departure, the BJP top brass huddled together, indicating that some drastic changes could be on the anvil in the state to arrest any damage to the party's image from the Yogi government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

Shah and Nadda met Modi as rumours swirled about a reshuffle in the Union Cabinet and a similar reshuffle in Uttar Pradesh. Both the rejigs will be done keeping in mind the upcoming state polls in 2022 in seven states, including UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Modi will also be meeting Union ministers in batches in the next few days, revealing a sense of urgency in the saffron party that is still smarting over its drubbing in the West Bengal Assembly polls.

Yogi's meeting with Modi lasted nearly an hour and he was with Nadda for nearly 90 minutes. However, there was no media interaction or press conference after these high-profile meetings, with leaders choosing to tweet photographs.

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After the meetings, Yogi tweeted in Hindi saying: "Heartfelt gratitude to the respected Prime Minister for providing time to meet and for loving guidance (aatmiya margdarshan) amid his busy schedule." Modi and Shah merely mentioned they met the UP CM, while Nadda hailed him as "successful (Yashaswhi) Chief Minister of UP".

According to insiders, the party has made it clear to Aditynath's critics that the chief minister will remain the party's face for next Assembly polls. But in a key change, Shah will be back in the thick of action in the state, where he turned around the party's fortunes before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Shah on Thursday met Apna Dal (S) chief Anupuriya S Patel, who was Union Minister in Modi's first government, and leaders of Nishad party in UP.

While Patel hails from the Kurmi caste, the second-most dominant OBC after Yadavs in UP, Nishad Party leader Sanjay Nishad is influential among the boatmen (mallah) community, which can influence outcomes in nearly 100 Assembly seats.

Images of bodies floating in the Ganga during the pandemic have done much damage to the good governance image of BJP in the state.

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The non-Yadav backward castes have been the bedrock of BJP's support base in UP in the last seven years. These meetings are significant amid the impression that the caste calculus Modi-Shah built assiduously in UP is now getting fractured under the strain of the pandemic, with the BJP's poor performance in the recent panchayat polls being a possible symptom.

But the BJP — even though it might be miffed with Adityanath — also feels a combo of 'Brand Modi and Brand Yogi' is a better option for it in UP when it goes to polls. Hence rather than making heads roll, the BJP is trying to address issues like Brahmins' anger by inducting Congress' Brahmin face Jitin Prasada and address governance-deficit issues by roping in former IAS officer Arvind Sharma, a trusted hand of Modi.

While the BJP has publicly dismissed talk of any rift, the Opposition Congress went to the town, claiming that "all is not well in UP BJP".

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said Adityanath had fallen on hard times as he is "wandering door-to-door to retain his post".