Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya’s instructions to a top police officer to put an end to “increasing corruption” and “rising incidents of cybercrime” in the state, a fresh sign of the continuing power tussle between Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has raised eyebrows in political circles.
Maurya publicly noted his instructions in a post on X (formerly Twitter) Monday morning after a meeting with ACS (Home) Deepak Kumar, DGP Prashant Kumar and other senior officials. His reference to rising corruption and cybercrime is seen in political circles as a veiled dig at Yogi, who holds the home affairs portfolio.
The development came three days after state BJP president Bhupendra Chaudhary dismissed suggestions of a change of guard in the state, saying “there is nothing of the sort” on the cards.
The tussle between Yogi and Maurya first surfaced at a party meeting to review the reasons for its major setback in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha polls. The BJP won only 33 seats in the recently concluded general election, compared to 62 seats in 2019, losing a chunk of its seats to the Samajwadi Party.
At the meeting, Maurya said that the “organisation” (the BJP) was bigger than the government, understood as a thinly veiled attack on the CM who sought to attribute the party’s poor show to “over-confidence”.
A series of meetings in Delhi and Lucknow between the top BJP leaders has failed to bring a rapprochement.
In fact, in what appears to be a show of strength amid the tussle, deputy CM Maurya regularly shares pictures of his meetings with party MLAs on X in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha results. Maurya was also conspicuously absent from by-poll preparation meeting presided over by Yogi on 8 June and another meeting of his ministers in Varanasi on 22 July ahead of the NITI Ayog meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi in Delhi Saturday.
While addressing Morcha workers Monday, Maurya said that it is the party, not the government, that always contests and wins the elections.
“Was the BJP government in place in 2014? Tell me, did we win or not? Was the government in place in 2017? Did we win or not? When the government was not in place, we won. When the government was formed, there was a thinking that we are dependent on the government, but one cannot win the election on the strength of the government. It is the party that fights and the party that wins,” he said, while urging workers to aim for a bigger victory for the BJP in the 2027 state assembly elections.
हम सभी कार्यकर्ताओं का एक ही लक्ष्य एक ही संदेश जन-जन तक पहुंचना है 2027 में 2017 फिर से दोहराना है।@Narendrak_bjp @BJP4UP@BJP4OBCMorcha @obcmorchabjp4up#OBCMorchaKarySamitiUP pic.twitter.com/wBONqROzF5
— Keshav Prasad Maurya (@kpmaurya1) July 29, 2024
Maurya’s reference to the election in 2017, and not 2022, was also significant as the BJP contested the 2017 assembly elections with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the face, while it contested the next assembly election under Yogi’s leadership.
On Monday, both deputy chief ministers, Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, left the Morcha meeting as Yogi’s arrival at the dais was being announced.
However, they were later spotted seated on either side of the CM during the BJP’s legislative party meeting in the evening, ahead of the beginning of the Monsoon session of the state legislature.
Meanwhile, a video of MLAs, including the president of the Jansatta Dal (Loktantrik) Kunda MLA Raja Bhaiya, touching the chief minister’s feet in the Vidhan Sabha Monday is being seen as an attempt by Yogi to project that he commands respect among the MLAs.
The Opposition and supporters of Yogi allege that the BJP central leadership has failed to reign Maurya in, giving the impression that the party intends to replace the CM in the future.
On Tuesday, referring to a video clip that, the Opposition alleges, shows Yogi greeting only Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and not Modi or Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a meeting with BJP CMs in Delhi, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav told the Lok Sabha: “The pain is that ever since they have lost in UP, no one is folding hands before them…Those who would call themselves very powerful remained unsuccessful in removing the one who made them lose.”
Samajwadi Party state spokesperson Rajkumar Bhati told ThePrint: “It is now clear that there is groupism within the BJP.”
“The deputy CM is chairing a meeting with officials from the home department, which falls under the CM, and posting the pictures on social media. He has been making statements, like ‘the party is bigger than the government’. Our national president, Akhilesh Yadav, has talked about how he (the CM) did not fold his hands in greeting when the Union Home Minister Amit Shah passed by him during the NITI Aayog meeting and greeted only Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. That the Union home minister doesn’t want Yogi ji is now no hidden fact,” Bhati said.
Yogi, Bhati said, had always been an outsider in the BJP. He had been running his Hindu Yuva Vahini — an outfit independent of the influence of the BJP or RSS — and was not the first choice for the post of chief minister.
“I have commented that there is serious groupism not only within the BJP but also in the bureaucracy. They (Centre) continued to give extensions to a chief secretary that the CM did not want and now, the CM has gone ahead and appointed his own man finally, after the Lok Sabha results. They (BJP central leadership) wanted to remove Yogi ji from CM’s chair but it seems that there is a feeling that such reports may harm the party in the upcoming by-polls and have decided to stop it till the by-polls at least. They (BJP’s central leadership) can resort to badmashi (mischief) after that,” he said.
Samajwadi Party chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said that everyone knows that the BJP is now “a house in disarray”.
“There is infighting within the BJP and it is the public which is continuously suffering due to the fight going on within the party for the CM’s chair. BJP is now a house of disarray and everyone knows this,” he said.
Yogi loyalists said that Maurya sent mixed signals in the OBC Morcha meeting Monday that the “ceasefire” between the central and UP leadership of BJP is temporary.
“This seems to be a temporary ceasefire between Delhi and Lucknow. It is clear that removing Yogi ji from CM post is not very easy but it seems this conciliatory phase will continue till the by-polls at least,” a UP BJP leader told ThePrint.
Ten Assembly seats are in the fray in the upcoming by-polls, for which the Election Commission has yet to announce a schedule.
“Had there been a patch-up between the central and state leadership of the BJP, it would have been difficult for Keshav Maurya to be so vocal. Akhilesh Yadav is trying to capitalise on the infighting and bickering within the BJP — something the latter won’t like around the by-polls. If Maurya had been reprimanded by the central leadership for his statements, it wouldn’t be easy for him to make such statements,” Shashikant Pandey, former HOD of the political science department at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University told ThePrint.
“The SP has made very smart moves during the Lok Sabha elections and have been able to come out of their image of a party of Muslims-Yadavs and the latest move to elevate Mata Prasad Pandey is also along the same lines. BJP has been analysing the LS results seriously and knows the importance of UP. It would want to undo this,” Pandey said.
He added that with the by-polls to ten Vidhan Sabha seats coming up, the BJP does not want to send the wrong message.
“Yogi Adityanath has established an image of himself as an honest and hard-working administrator and the party understands that removing him from the CM’s post may backfire too. This is not something that the party would like to risk around the by-polls. However, this phase of reconciliation within the central and state leadership seems to be temporary. The post-by-poll phase will be interesting to watch for,” he said.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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