In a letter to UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, AK Sharma, the party’s newly-appointed vice president in Uttar Pradesh, stated that chief minister Yogi Adityanath will lead the party into next year’s assembly elections. The letter, which was sent on Sunday, was made public on Monday, just before BL Santhosh, the visiting BJP general secretary (organisation), and other members of the party’s core committee met with Adityanath.
“The BJP would win even more seats than before in the 2022 UP elections to be held under your and chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s stewardship,” Sharma, a retired IAS officer close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, wrote in the letter, which is seen as an attempt to quell speculation about rifts within the party over leadership issues.
On Monday, UP labour minister Swami Prasad Maurya said that the state would fight the 2022 elections under Adityanath’s leadership, but that the party’s leadership would decide on the chief minister after the election. BJP leaders rushed to explain that the minister was simply repeating the formal procedure of newly-elected legislators selecting their leader.
AK Sharma letter also underscored PM Modi’s continuing popularity among people in the state. “In my view, people of UP love Modiji just as much as they did in 2013-14 and this great leader’s name and patronage is enough to win elections.”.
