LUCKNOW: Political temperatures are set to soar as UP heads for the crucial polling for Zila Panchayat chairman elections on Saturday, immediately followed by nomination for the four legislative council seats which are due to fall vacant on July 5.
A direct electoral contest between the BJP and the belligerent opposition supported candidates is expected in 38 districts for the ZP chairman elections, touted as a semifinal before the high stake UP assembly elections due next year. As many as 21 BJP supported and one SP supported candidates have already been elected unopposed.
At the same time, the ruling party will be the centre of a political frenzy vis-a-vis nomination for the four seats by the governor -- after due approval of the state cabinet -- even as the saffron political outfit seeks to placate its restless allies and sulking senior party ranks. The four seats which would fall vacant are currently being occupied by Samajwadi Party leaders -- Sri Ram Singh Yadav, Lilawati Kushwaha, Ram Vraksh Yadav and Jitendra Yadav.
UP BJP sources do not rule out the possibility of Congress turn coat, Jitin Prasada -- who joined the BJP last month -- being whipped up as a Brahmin card by routing him to the upper house to counter the opposition narrative of Thakurs gaining prominence in the current BJP dispensation headed by Yogi Adityanath, himself a Thakur.
Speculations are also rife about BJP plans to placate senior leader and former state unit chief Laxmikant Bajpai, also a Brahmin, by getting him accommodated in the legislative council. Bajpai has largely been away from the thick of activities in the saffron camp soon after he lost his stronghold seat of Meerut to SP's Rafiq Ansari despite BJP’s landslide victory in 2017 assembly elections.
Bajpai had represented Meerut in 2012, 2002 and 1996 assembly elections. Murmurs about Bajpai being resurrected by the BJP ahead of the next year's polls began to attain traction when BJP vice-president and party's UP's in charge Radha Mohan Singh met Bajpai while camping in the west UP region recently. Sources said that the party is expected to strike a caste arithmetic to send out a large political message of taking along all sections in the social ladder.
The BJP has been attempting to mollify its otherwise anxious allies who have been asserting themselves while bargaining for a bigger political space. The unease amongst the BJP allies became apparent when Anpa Dal (S) chief Anupriya Patel and NISHAD party president Sanjay Nishad met senior BJP leader and home minister Amit Shah last month, flipping one's lid in the saffron camp.
While the BJP managed to assuage Apna Dal by by lending support on two seats -- Jaunpur and Sonebhadra -- for the Zila Panchayat chairman elections, angst has been palpable in case of Sanjay Nishad who ruffled BJP ranks by raising the demand of being projected as party's deputy CM face.
