These three bachelors played a key role in BJP's triumph in Uttar Pradesh

NEW DELHI: Three bachelors played a key, behind-the-scenes role in building the Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in Uttar Pradesh.

Although the BJP rode on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity, party president Amit Shah got the organisational chariot for the success assembled by three musketeers – Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharaks Shiv Prakash and Sunil Bansal and former pracharak Om Mathur.

While Mathur is a party national vice president, Prakash is joint general secretary (organisation) at the national level and Bansal is general secretary (organisation) of the party's UP unit. All of them are bachelors.

Starting as tehsil pracharak of Amroha (western UP) in 1986, Prakash was RSS pracharak in Meerut, Almora and Dehradun before rising to prant pracharak of Uttarakhand (2000-09) and kshetra pracharak of Pashchim Kshetra (Uttarakhand and western UP) in 2014, before the RSS loaned him to the BJP soon after the party's victory in 2014. He was since put in charge of organisational matters in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Although the BJP drowned in the Mamata Banerjee wave in West Bengal last year, the party improved its vote share to a double-digit level. Prakash worked behind the scenes in striking up social combinations, ironing out organisational glitches and keeping the BJP election machine running efficiently in UP and Uttarakhand.

A patient listener, Prakash became a target of former Uttarakhand chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari’s barbs during the state executive meeting last year for his impartial organisational work that threatened Koshyari’s factional interests. Unfazed, Prakash continued working on what was in the party's best interests. The BJP's wins in both states are a handsome testimony to his organisational work.

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Bansal, on the other hand, came to UP during the peak of the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign and assisted Shah, who was then general secretary in-charge of the state. He earned the trust of Shah who rewarded Bansal by making him UP general secretary (organisation).

"He is the hero of the Uttar Pradesh efforts of the party," Shah was heard telling visitors during the campaign last month. A meticulous planner, Bansal organised parivartan yatras and shaped the party’s election campaign plans to the last detail.

Mathur has the distinction of managing and winning elections for the party. He managed the BJP's Gujarat elections in 2007 and 2012, in which Modi was re-elected chief minister. He was also behind the efforts that led Uma Bharti to become chief minister of Madhya Pradesh in 2003 and, more than a decade later, Devendra Fadnavis becoming the first BJP chief minister of Maharashtra in 2014.

Soon after becoming BJP president, Shah, who worked with Mathur in Gujarat, put him in charge of the politically crucial Maharashtra in 2014, where Mathur was assisted by Bansal, and subsequently deployed both for the critical UP election.