Next Uttar Pradesh CM will be decided after 2022 polls: Senior BJP leader Swami Prasad Maurya

Despite all-out efforts to portray that all is well within the BJP, sharp differences have cropped again over the issue of the chief ministerial face of the saffron party in the next Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, which are due early next year.

After Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, UP minister and senior BJP leader Swami Prasad Maurya has also said that the issue of the chief minister would be decided after the next Assembly polls.

''The elected representatives of the party (BJP) will decide who will be their leader.....sometimes the central leadership also takes a call on the issue,'' Maurya told reporters.

Maurya said that in 2017 also, the BJP had not declared its chief ministerial face. ''Yogi Adityanath was chosen after the polls,'' he added.

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He said that besides Adityanath, there could also be other claimants to the top post. ''It could be Yogiji.....there may also be some other claimants,'' the minister went on to add.

Earlier Keshav Prasad Maurya had also said that the central leadership would decide who the BJP's chief ministerial face, if any, would be. ''It has not yet been decided,'' he had remarked.

The remarks once again indicated that a power tussle is still continuing within the UP BJP despite statements to the contrary by the senior saffron party leaders.

The remark came on a day when BJP national general secretary BL Santosh and UP in-charge Radha Mohan Singh landed in Lucknow and held discussions with the RSS and party leaders.

Earlier, UP BJP chief Swatantra Deo Singh had ruled out a change of guard in the state despite demands from several party leaders, MLAs and MPs.