New Delhi: Gearing up for assembly elections in several states, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday appointed Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Bhupender Yadav as the election incharges for Bihar and West Bengal respectively.
Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav Prasad Maurya, and Union Minister C.R. Paatil will serve as co-incharges for Bihar, while former Tripura chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb, currently the Lok Sabha MP from Tripura West, will serve as the co-incharge for West Bengal.
BJP MP and national vice-president Baijayant Panda has been made the incharge for Tamil Nadu. Union Minister of State Murlidhar Mohol has been appointed co-incharge for the state.
The Election Commission is expected to declare the dates for the Bihar assembly polls in the first half of October, while polling in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu is to be held next year.
The appointments for Bihar assume significance as they come at a time when the BJP is taking measures to put its strife-ridden house in order ahead of the crucial state elections. The party is currently part of the Nitish Kumar-led ruling alliance in the state.
Senior party leaders, including former Union minister R.K. Singh, have raised concern over allegations of corruption levelled by Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor against BJP leaders, including state unit president Dilip Jaiswal and Deputy CM Samrat Chaudhary.
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BJP’s Bihar tacticians
“Pradhan is known as a strategist and delivered in several elections, including the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. He is also the OBC face and will help garner support of the community in a state where caste is a significant factor,” a senior party functionary told ThePrint.
Paatil, meanwhile, is considered to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is known within party circles as a ‘tough taskmaster’ and ‘brilliant executor’.
The party is hopeful that Maurya’s Kurmi background will also help strike a chord with a significant chunk of Kurmi voters in the state.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has been keeping a close watch on Bihar and held several meetings with party functionaries from the state in recent weeks, it is learnt.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on his part, has addressed several public meetings where he announced major initiatives for the state ahead of the elections.
In West Bengal, the party is upbeat about its poll prospects despite a drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections, hoping to ride on the anti-incumbency sentiment against the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) government.
The BJP in July appointed its Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya as the president of its state unit, hoping to put its house in order as it gears up for the elections. “There are too many factions within the state unit and due to that, the work is getting affected. Workers are feeling demotivated and with Yadav being appointed, they are hoping things will improve significantly,” said another party leader. Yadav is also credited for the party’s victory in Madhya Pradesh in 2023.
In Tamil Nadu, Panda, who played a crucial role in the Delhi elections, has been tasked with overseeing poll preparations. The BJP replaced party leader K. Annamalai with Nainar Nagendran as state president in April as it looked to stitch its alliance with the AIADMK. “Panda is known as someone who can take everyone along and this is going to come handy in Tamil Nadu, which has been facing in-fighting,” said a third party leader.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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