NEW DELHI: UP chief minister
Yogi Adityanath met
BJP president
Amit Shah on Monday, the first meeting of the two since the bypoll results, during which the party chief is learnt to have expressed concern over the poor turnout which has been attributed to the defeat of party candidates.
Yogi was in the national capital to see deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who has undergone surgery at AIIMS. Party sources said Shah and Yogi had detailed discussions on the defeat of BJP candidates in Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur assembly bypolls. Sources said the BJP chief asked Yogi to see the reasons behind the lower than expected turnout. Shah also asked the UP CM to ensure that the development works reflect at the ground level and the party workers actively interact with the people.
Party sources said they also discussed the evolving political situation in the state where opposition parties have joined hands to challenge BJP which had swept the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2017 assembly poll in the state.
It was learnt that the two leaders discussed about dissenting voices from within, including some MPs and MLAs, over the functioning of the state government. Alliance partners like SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, a minister in the state, has been a critic of the government, another issue that cropped up during the meeting, sources said.
Shah had recently said that his party is working to grab 50 per cent vote share in the state to weaken any united opposition challenge.
The BJP had last month lost Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur assembly bypolls. Earlier, it had lost bypolls in Gorakhpur, a seat vacated by Adityanath, and Phulpur parliamentary seats.
File photo