BJP appoints election in-charges for 5 poll-bound states; Fadnavis, Pradhan in the mix

On Wednesday, BJP president JP Nadda appointed the party's election in-charge and co-in-charges of the poll-bound states of Goa, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab. The aforesaid states are likely to witness Assembly polls in March-April next year. Moreover, Lok Sabha MP Sanjay Bhatia, Bihar MLA Sanjeev Chaurasiya, BJP national secretary Y Satya Kumar, party joint treasurer Sudhir Gupta, party national secretary Arvind Menon and UP co-in-charge Sunil Oza will be the organizational in-charges of Western UP, Braj, Awadh, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Kashi. 

Here is the full list of BJP in-charges: 

BJP's thrust on upcoming Assembly polls

In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, BJP 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. 

While 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 visit to Varanasi on July 15. During his interaction with the beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana on August 5, the PM hailed the state's COVID-19 vaccination efforts, praised the CM for his efforts in empowering the people and pitched the benefits of having a BJP government at the state as well as the Centre.

As far as Uttarakhand is concerned, BJP changed two Chief Ministers- Trivendra Singh Rawat and Tirath Singh Rawat despite having a comfortable majority. The government led by Pushkar Singh Dhami faces a tough challenge for re-election from Congress and AAP which has projected Colonel (retd) Ajay Kothiyal as its CM face. On the other hand, the prospects for the saffron party in Punjab appear bleak as it is no longer an ally of Shiromani Akali Dal.

In both Goa and Manipur, BJP formed the government despite Congress having more seats in the respective state assemblies. Pramod Sawant has been at the helm of affairs in Goa since March 2019 when BJP stalwart Manohar Parrikar passed away and his tenure has seen a lot of defections from the Congress party. After barely scraping through a no-confidence motion, the N Biren Singh-led government in Manipur has now become the single-largest party in the Assembly with 24 seats.