On the second day of his two-day trip to Delhi on Friday (June 11), UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for about seventy minutes and had a one-to-one with party President J P Nadda for over hundred minutes. Later in the day he also called on President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Kovind, the second Dalit President of India, hails from Uttar Pradesh.
As reported, the hectic activities in Lucknow and Delhi are being seen in the back-drop of accommodating Arvind Kumar Sharma, a retired bureaucrat considered very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The meeting between Modi and Yogi is considered very significant as the Prime Minister had not even greeted the UP chief minister on his birthday (June 5). In contrast, defence minister Rajnath Singh, who belongs to the same Rajput caste, publicly sent his greetings to Yogi on this occasion.
It is said that the Central leadership of the BJP wants to dispel the perception that the party in UP is being dominated by Rajputs. That is why, Sharma, a Bhumihar, and Jitin Prasada, a Brahmin have suddenly acquired importance.
Not only that, the leader of Apna Dal, Anupriya Patel, a Kurmi met home minister Amit Shah on Thursday. In fact, Anupriya, a minister in the last Modi cabinet, reached Amit Shah’s home when Yogi was still meeting the Union home minister.
Later on Thursday evening, Nishad Party leader Sanjay Nishad, also met home minister Amit Shah.
The need to broad-base the BJP in UP arose after it was felt that the party’s graph is sharply going down ever since the launch of farmers’ movement last year and the ascent of second wave of corona virus. Political observers are of the view that both these developments have dented the image of PM and the UP CM.
