PM’s aide Amit Shah on road to make BJP sweep UP assembly bypolls

NEW DELHI: Barely a month after winning a record 71 Lok Sabha seats in UP, BJP is looking to sweep 11 assembly bypolls and the Mainpuri parliamentary seat which SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav is expected to relinquish as he has been elected from Azamgarh too.

And, predictably, drawing the BJP campaign action plan yet again is Amit Shah.

According to sources, Shah is expected to be in the Lucknow office of the party next week to take stock of the situation and plan a strategy for the forthcoming polls, expected around August. BJP state unit president Laxmikant Bajpai said Shah has already asked for ground reports on the seats .

“Although there are at least two months for the polls, Shah wants work to begin right now as party workers are enthusiastic,” Bajpai said, adding that this time BJP wants to highlight crimes against women and power thefts as the main issues in the state.

Party members have also been asked to talk to “some important non-Yadav, non-Muslim party members of the Samajwadi Party and arrange for meetings with Shah,” during his stay in Lucknow.

In his four-day stay in Lucknow, party insiders said Shah plans to weed out many who were not efficient in the party campaign and decide candidates for the seats that will face bypolls. The focus of the strategy will be definitely Mainpuri, said Bajpai, adding Shah himself would monitor all arrangements of campaign in the SP bastion.

Mulayam Singh had won the seat by a margin of 3.64 lakh votes and Azamgarh by just 63,000 votes.

As per sources, Shah had talked to some party leaders about fielding Ramakanth Yadav who lost to Mulayam in Azamgarh in Mainpuri but was rethinking it now.

“There are indications that he might field a non-Yadav OBC candidate to get traditional BJP votes and also those of non-Yadavs,” said a party member, adding Shah was in talks with two senior leaders of the state party unit to finalise the names by next week.