Amid talk of UP BJP rift, Yogi Adityanath takes charge of Assembly bypoll preparation

Amid signs of dissent in Uttar Pradesh following the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha elections, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has assumed direct control of preparations for 10 Assembly bypolls that will be held in the state after their MLAs were elected to Parliament.

While the election dates have not been announced yet and the organisation has yet to prepare a plan for these 10 seats, the CM has set the ball rolling by delegating responsibilities to ministers, who have been instructed to camp in the Assembly constituency assigned to them, resolve people’s grievances, and strengthen booth management.

At the meeting held at the CM residence in Lucknow on Wednesday, the two people conspicuous by their absence were Deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak. Not just them, sources said senior BJP organisational leaders were also absent. Explaining this, some BJP leaders said that till the election dates were announced it was “mainly the work of the government to resolve people’s issues” and that is why only ministers were present at the meeting.

“The government is doing its job. Once the bypoll dates are announced, the sangathan (party organisation) will decide who will do what,” said a senior BJP leader, emphasising the most important job at present is to “resolve people’s grievances” to counter negative publicity through proactive intervention.

Adityanath’s meeting with the ministers came on a day when Maurya reiterated his statement that the party was bigger than the government. He had made similar comments — seen as a veiled attack on the CM, suggesting that he was ignoring party workers and running the state through the bureaucracy — at a recent state party meeting.

Sources said that with the BJP losing the