Amid speculations of friction within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the 2022 assembly elections, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday, 22 June, paid a visit to Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya's residence, where certain senior RSS leaders were also gathered at the time, as per a report by The Indian Express.
While the chief minister had purportedly dropped in to bless Maurya's son and daughter-in-law on their recent wedding, the visit appears to have greater political significance - serving as a show of solidarity within the BJP unit of Uttar Pradesh.
Reportedly, Adityanath is not known to have visited the deputy chief minister’s residence before, despite it being located only metres from his own.
Ever since Adityanath was put up for the post of chief minister in UP in the 2017 polls, a strained relationship is conjectured to have existed between him and Maurya, who had headed the BJP Uttar Pradesh unit at that time.
The lunch at Maurya's house was also attended by RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, Joint General Secretary Krishna Gopal and Deputy CM Dinesh Sharma.
The gathering at Maurya’s residence comes days after the deputy CM had hinted that the central leadership of the BJP would take a call on the chief ministerial candidate for the 2022 elections, as per a report by The Hindu.
UP Labour Minister Swami Prasad Maurya on 20 June had also similarly suggested the CM face for the state will be chosen after the party secures victory in the upcoming elections.
The BJP-Adityanath Breach
The Adityanath-led government had recently come under fire for its inefficiency in the management of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the lack of coordination between his government and BJP MLAs and MPs.
Speculations of a rift between the UP CM and the BJP top brass over these matters had been followed by a slew of high-level meetings between the two in Delhi and Lucknow, following which the party reportedly decided to continue with incumbent Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as its face for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections due early next year.
(With inputs from The Hindu and The Indian Express)
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