On January 12, the newly appointed Uttar Pradesh BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary convened a meeting of the party leaders and workers from the Awadh region in Ayodhya.
On his way to Ayodhya from Lucknow, the BJP’s rank and file welcomed Chaudhary at 55 places with about 12,000 vehicles joining his cavalcade in its final leg. It took nearly 10 hours for him to traverse this 130-km distance on a national highway.
Earlier this month, during Chaudhary’s visit to Gorakhpur, his home turf, the party workers of the region welcomed him at nearly 50 places as he headed from the airport to the party office, then visited the Gorakhnath temple before reaching his home in the city.
Chaudhary got a similar grand welcome from the BJP workers during his recent visits to the Kashi, Braj and Paschim (western UP) regions of the state, which were part of his first tour across UP after taking over as the state party chief on December 14.
The BJP activists in the Awadh and Paschim regions even deployed JCBs to shower flowers on Chaudhary besides garlanding him.
Chaudhary kicked off his statewide tour on December 27 by visiting Mathura and Agra districts of the Braj region. Next day, he travelled from Ghaziabad to Meerut, where he held a meeting of the party’s western UP region.
The BJP has six regional units in UP, with only the Kanpur region left for Chaudhary’s visit now.
Some UP BJP insiders said that while the former state party chiefs also used to receive “big welcomes”, the scale of such events organised for Chaudhary is “unprecedented”.
The BJP insiders gave various reasons behind these grand welcome programmes. “Chaudhary is a seven-term MP from Maharajganj and also Union Minister of State for Finance, but his involvement in political affairs outside his constituency has been limited so far. He has never held any organisational post in UP BJP. Party workers outside Maharajganj and neighbouring Gorakhpur are not much familiar with him. Hence, these welcome meetings are being organised to give opportunity to party workers to interact with the new president,” said a party leader.
He said these interactions with the regional BJP leaders would help Chaudhary in forming his new state team besides rejigging the regional and district party committees.
In the course of his visits, Chaudhary held meetings with regional party office-bearers, other organisational functionaries down to the mandal level, and local elected representatives, appealing to them to gear up for the 2027 Assembly elections.
“Former UP BJP presidents such as Bhupendra Chaudhary, Swatantra Dev Singh, Keshav Prasad Maurya, Mahendra Nath Pandey, Laxmikant Bajpai, Surya Pratap Shahi, among others, had long organisational experience and had worked in different party roles before taking charge of the state unit. Party workers were familiar with them. But the situation is different now. So, welcome ceremonies are being organised on Chaudhary’s first visit to regional headquarters,” said the leader quoted above.
He also cited the caste factor, highlighting the OBC identity of Chaudhary, who belongs to the Kurmi group. The move by leaders from various communities to roll out the red carpet for Chaudhary would help counter the Samajwadi Party’s PDA (Pichchda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) push in the state, the leader said.
“The OBC and Dalit politics dominate UP’s political landscape. Despite having Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maruya, BJP has had to depend on allies like Apna Dal (S), Suheldeo Bharatiya Samaj party (SBSP) and Nishad Party in central and eastern UP, and RLD in western UP for OBC votes,” he added. Another BJP leader said several state party presidents had been appointed in the past when there was no big election round the corner. “So they usually had enough time to travel across the state and meet the party leaders and workers. But Pankaj Chaudhary has taken the charge when the Election Commission’s SIR of electoral rolls is going on in the state, Legislative Council polls are approaching, panchayat elections are slated for later this year, and Assembly elections are just 13 months away,” he said.
“Also, the BJP has been ruling UP for almost 11 years. And new people have joined the party. They want organisational responsibilities and tickets in the coming elections. These aspirants are using the welcome functions for the new party chief to display their strength, thereby enhancing the scale of the events,” said a party insider.
UP BJP spokesperson Rakesh Trpathi said, “Welcoming the new state presidents has been a tradition in BJP and such programmes on a grand scale had been organised for them in the past too. This time, it is looking grander because the BJP’s strength has increased and the party has expanded organisationally.”