LUCKNOW: Putting all the speculations to rest, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Thursday, appointed Bhupendra Singh Chaudhury, a known Jat leader from western UP, an MLC and Panchayati Raj minister in Yogi Aditynath cabinet, party's president in Uttar Pradesh.
Chaudhary will replace Swatantra Dev Singh, who had sent his resignation from the post of UP BJP president to party president JP Nadda on July 27 after completing his three-year term on the post in consonance with party's one man-one-post principle. Currently, Swantantra Dev is cabinet minister for Jalshakti in the Yogi government.
Significantly, Chaudhary's appointment is seen as the BJP's attempt to reach out to the influential Jat community, which had been at the forefront of the year-long farmers' protest against the three contentious farm laws which were scrapped finally in November 2021. The party had been struggling to win over the Jats in western UP for quite some time and Chaudhury’s appointment is being seen as a major leap in that direction, especially in the wake of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
It is also being considered a bid by the BJP high command to strike a regional balance in state leadership. As CM Yogi comes from Gorakhpur in the far east, Chaudhary is from western Uttar Pradesh, as the party's state president.
As per the highly placed sources of the BJP, the appointment of Chaudhury would help the party consolidate its position in western UP and minimize the impact of the Samajwadi Party (SP) -Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance in the 2024 poll battle as he is considered to be a towering Jat leader.
Bhupendra Singh Chaudhury, 54, is a Swayamsevak and believed to be close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Hailing from Mahendri Sikandarpur village of Moradabad district, Chaudhury joined Vishwa Hindu Parishad before starting his political journey with the BJP in 1991. He rose through the ranks in the party to become BJP regional chief in 2012 and held the post till 2017 when he joined the Yogi cabinet as minister of state for Panchayati Raj with independent charge.
In 1999, Chaudhury had contested the Lok Sabha election against SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav from Sambhal but had lost.
Media shy and a low-profile leader, Chaudhury, in his capacity as the Panchayati Raj minister, has the record of getting maximum of 1.75 toilets under the PM Swachhata Mission constructed to his credit. He was nominated to UP Legislative Council for the first time in 2016 and was elected for the second consecutive term in 2022.
“The appointment of Bhupendra Singh Chaudhury would benefit the BJP's one and a half dozen Lok Sabha segments dominated by the Jats,” says Prof AK Mishra, a prominent political scientist. This appointment would also come in handy for the saffron brigade in keeping its backward class vote bank intact across the state as in UP Jats fall in the backward class category.
In 2014, the BJP won a record 71 of 80 Lok Saba seats in UP and repeated the same exemplary performance in the 2017 assembly polls. However, in the 2019 General elections, the saffron brigade was faced with the challenge of the SP-BSP-RLD grand alliance.
Of 16 seats which the BJP lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, seven -- Moradabad, Bijnor, Nagina, Amroha, Sambhal and Rampur --- of Moradabad division and Saharanpur—belonged to western UP
The grand alliance shrouded the BJP's performance in other western UP parliamentary segments. In Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Baghpat, the ruling party registered the victory but with a thin margin.
In the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP faced a formidable challenge by the SP-RLD alliance which improved upon its performance considerably giving a dent of 13 assembly seats to the BJP. The ruling party, which had won 91 of 113 assembly seats in 2017, dwindled to 78 of 113 seats in 2022.
During the 2022 assembly polls, the BJP, which had been enjoying the overwhelming support of Jats since 2014, could feel a clear drift in the Jat vote bank towards the SP-RLD alliance in western UP. In such a scenario, BJP has put a bet on Bhupendra Chaudhury, a jat leader with vast political experience and organizational skills to reach out to the dominant Jat community in 2024.