UP BJP has announced its new 712-member state working committee as it prepares for upcoming elections
The Gorakhpur region, Adityanath’s political backyard, has the highest representation in the state executive, with 120 members. It is followed by the Kashi region, which includes Varanasi, the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with 108 members. The 30 permanent invitees include Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, chief minister Yogi Adityanath and the two deputy chief ministers, Keshav Maurya and Brajesh Pathak.
The list, released by state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary, includes party functionaries and leaders from across the state’s six organisational regions — West, Braj, Kanpur, Awadh, Kashi and Gorakhpur.
Pandey remains an “unattached member” of the UP assembly and is yet to formally join the BJP. The meeting is expected to be attended by BJP chief poll strategist and Union home minister Amit Shah , besides several other senior leaders, including national general secretary and UP in-charge Vinod Tawde and chief minister Yogi Adityanath . UP ministers, including Surya Pratap Shahi and Bhupendra Chaudhary, have also been included in the list of permanent invitees. Union ministers Hardeep Puri, BL Verma, Jitin Prasad, SP Singh Baghel, Kamlesh Paswan and Kiri Vardhan Singh are also among them. Three Muslim leaders — former cabinet minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, BJP Minority Morcha national president Basit Ali and BJP MLC Tariq Mansoor — have also been included in the list of permanent invitees. Former Samajwadi Party MLA Manoj Pandey, who was recently inducted into the Yogi cabinet, has also been included as a special invitee. The increase in the numerical strength of the new state working committee is seen as a move to accommodate the growing pool of party functionaries who were left out of the recent organisational restructuring. The timing of the announcement is significant, coming amid efforts by the BJP’s state leadership to consolidate its organisation and strengthen its election preparedness against an assertive Opposition, primarily the Samajwadi Party and its ally, the Congress.