5 UP BJP leaders managing polls in Bengal

As the election campaign in Bengal has reached its crescendo, the back-room operators are working overnight, managing the election strategy of the party. Among the 18 leaders parachuted to Bengal to streamline the poll campaign, five belong to Uttar Pradesh.

Leaders from other states were sent in two batches. The first batch comprising five leaders arrived in Bengal in November to fathom the political water. Of the five leaders, two were from UP. One is Vinod Sonkar, national secretary of the party and MP from Kaushambi while the other is Harish Dwivedi, MP from Basti.

These leaders were made in-charge of an organisational zone. They toured their respective zones and spoke to the local leaders and workers before returning to Delhi to report to Amit Shah and party chief JP Nadda.

Vinod Sonkar is in-charge of Durgapur zone while Harish Dwivedi is in-charge of the north Bengal zone. On the basis of their findings, the BJP decided its strategy for Bengal assembly polls.

In the second phase, 13 leaders, all of them having organisational experience, were sent to Bengal and in this lot, three were from Uttar Pradesh.

The pack is led by Sunil Bansal, who is general secretary (organisation) of the BJP’s UP unit. Bansal is credited with building the party structure in UP and leading the party to a stellar victory in the 2017 assembly elections. He is considered a close lieutenant of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. His responsibility is to co-ordinate and oversee the Bengal BJP’s Calcutta zone.

“We are party workers. Wherever the party leadership will send us, we will go and campaign. What I was doing in Lucknow, the same I am doing in Kolkata. I am meeting people and streamlining the (party) working,” Bansal told this reporter.

The other leaders from UP who are camping in Bengal are Union Minister of State for Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Sanjeev Balyan who is an MP from Muzaffarnagar.

The fifth leader is Keshav Prasad Maurya, the Deputy Chief Minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.

“In every election, people from other states go and work. That’s what we are doing. We are not doing something special. It is a party and we are doing that,” Maurya said.

Party’s state vice-president Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that BJP being a national party it was very common for leaders from one state to go to another state during elections.

“During UP elections, leaders from other states had come to UP. Similarly in Bengal elections, senior leaders from UP have gone there,” he said.