With ear to ground, Amit Shah comes calling to assess, tweak & rollout UP poll blueprint

LUCKNOW: With BJP’s overwhelming electoral success in Uttar Pradesh during 2014, 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 2017 assembly polls under his belt, Union home minister Amit Shah will be back to the political drawing board in Lucknow on Friday. With an ear to the ground, the master strategist will do a micro-assessment after receiving feedback, before rolling out the poll blueprint.
Known for deft political strategies, Shah is learnt to have summoned a joint meeting of former MLAs and MPs along with the incumbent in charge of assembly seats and sitting party MLAs. The move, experts said, could potentially arm the crafty politician with ground-level feedback to take on BJP’s political rivals, particularly regional satraps like SP and BSP, in the run-up to the high-pitched assembly elections early next year.
Top sources in BJP said, the meeting, likely to be convened at Indira Gandhi Pratishthan immediately after Shah’s address to functionaries of 5,047 ‘shakti kendras’ and 377 divisions of Awadh region comprising 13 districts and 83 assembly seats. Party sources said, in charge and convener of shakti kendras (conglomeration of six polling booths), presidents and conveners of 377 divisions have been asked to reach the meeting venue — Sector 17, Vrindavan Yojana, Lucknow. The home minister will also launch a membership drive, besides flagging off campaign vehicles to various districts.
Shah will be joined by Union education minister and state election in charge, Dharmendra Pradhan, BJP vice-president and UP organisational in charge Radha Mohan Singh, chief minister Yogi Adityanath, state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, state general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal, besides a host of other state leaders.
A meeting of former MPs, MLAs, sitting MLAs and assembly in-charge is seen with much anticipation amid reports of party high command planning to bench a number of incumbent lawmakers to tide over a possible anti-incumbency. BJP sources said, the feedback from party’s organisational brass, including general secretary (organisation), BL Santhosh and party vice-president Radha Mohan Singh are expected to play a crucial role.
Party sources said, Shah will subsequently hold a series of organisational meetings at state BJP headquarters to work out a “well planned” and an adept strategy to put the state poll machinery on an unassailable electoral course by devising an exhaustive election campaign. “His vast organisational experience and a precise feel of raw political pulse in UP will play a key factor,” said BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai. Shah’s visit to UP, not surprisingly, will ramp up the political temperatures of UP amid a bellicose Opposition rolling up its sleeves to thwart the ruling saffron dispensation’s bid of returning to office in 2022.
Experts said, support of BJP ally-turned-rival SBSP to Samajwadi Party and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra setting an engaging narrative through sops for women may also have spurred the BJP brass to shift gears.