PM Modi meets 40 MPs from Uttar Pradesh today as 2022 Assembly election looms

Months ahead of the Assembly election, PM Modi met nearly 40 MPs from Uttar Pradesh over breakfast at his official residence in the national capital on Friday. This comes after his key visit to Varanasi where he inaugurated the Kashi Vishwanath Dham and chaired a conclave of Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled states. Sources mentioned that this shall be his 4th such meeting during the ongoing Winter session of Parliament having already met parliamentarians from all north-eastern states, southern states and Madhya Pradesh.

Sources indicated that these meetings have been informal where the PM urged party MPs to increase their engagement with people beyond political activities and shun VIP culture. He is likely to meet the remaining BJP parliamentarians from the state in another meeting. In the last few weeks, PM Modi has regularly visited the state for inaugurating or laying the foundation stone for multiple projects and highlighted the achievements of the Centre as well as the Yogi Adityanath-led government. 

BJP's thrust on UP polls

In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, BJP had won a whopping 312 seats in the 403-member House, whereas BSP could win only 19 seats. On the other hand, the SP-Congress alliance failed to bear fruit as it could win in only 54 constituencies. While this was seen as a mandate for PM Modi as BJP had not declared any CM candidate, Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath was a surprise pick for the post. Though some BJP leaders made conflicting statements over Adityanath's future as the Chief Minister, PM Modi put rest to all speculations by lauding UP's governance model during his successive visits to the state.

Leaving no stone unturned for the 2022 Assembly election, BJP appointed Dharmendra Pradhan as its election in-charge and Anurag Thakur, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Shobha Karandlaje, Annapurna Devi, Saroj Pandey and Vivek Thakur as the co-in-charges. Meanwhile, Sanjay Bhatia, Sanjeev Chaurasiya, Y Satya Kumar, Sudhir Gupta, Arvind Menon and Sunil Oza were named as the organizational in-charges of Western UP, Braj, Awadh, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Kashi. On September 24, BJP formally announced an alliance with the Nishad Party and Apna Dal (S).

(With PTI inputs)