Cryptic tweet of Uttar Pradesh deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya sets political circles abuzz | Lucknow News

LUCKNOW: Amid the growing activity around the search for a new UP BJP chief, deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya on Sunday sent out a cryptic tweet saying: “Sangathan Sarkar se bada hai… (organisation is bigger than the state government).”
Maurya’s observation came on a day when Dharampal Saini held his first deliberation with party workers from the west and Braj region of UP after taking charge as the state general secretary (organisation) on Sunday. Maurya was also present at the meeting which was held in Ghaziabad.

The incumbent state president Swatantra Dev Singh has already sent his resignation letter to party president JP Nadda after getting inducted in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet.
Maurya was the UP BJP president when the party stormed to power with an overwhelming majority in 2017 assembly elections. He eventually emerged as a key OBC face of the party even as the BJP managed to consolidate the non-Yadav OBCs in UP. The BJP has set the OBC narrative once again through appointment of Dharampal Saini, an OBC, on the key post.
Speculation, not surprisingly, has been rife about Maurya playing a crucial role in selection of the new state chief. It was only last week that Maurya had met BJP national president JP Nadda.
While the BJP leaders remained tight-lipped, sources said that the saffron outfit was weighing its options threadbare after considering caste equations of various party leaders for the key organisational seat.
Amongst the OBC leaders who are being considered as a front-runner for the post of UP BJP president include Union minister of state for ministry of cooperation, BL Verma, a Lodh, and UP minister Bhupendra Chaudhary, a Jat.
The BJP, as a matter of fact, has been appointing a Brahmin leader to head the UP unit before parliamentary elections since 2014. Laxmikant Bajpai headed Uttar Pradesh BJP before 2014 Lok Sabha elections, followed by Mahendra Nath Pandey before 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
This time, the names of BJP leaders like Kannauj MP Subrata Pathakformer energy minister and Mathura MLA Srikant Sharma and former deputy CM Dinesh Sharma have been doing the rounds.