Lucknow: It will be a moment of Mission Accomplished for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh team, which executed an intensive ground-level campaign in the Bengal elections, will turn up at Kolkata's Brigade Ground to applaud the coronation of Suvendu Adhikari as the state's first BJP Chief Minister.
More than 24 senior Uttar Pradesh BJP leaders, including Yogi, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, and four UP ministers, had mobilised the cadre and campaigned extensively in the Bengal elections – a move that propelled the party to register a stunning victory over Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC).
Besides Yogi, who was one of the star campaigners, Maurya and Pathak will attend the swearing-in. Uttar Pradesh ministers — JPS Rathore, Dinesh Khatik, Sanjay Gangwar and Dayashankar Mishra Dayalu — too are expected to attend it.
“It will be like giving a final touch to the campaign in Bengal,” said Rathore, who flew to Kolkata on Friday itself. Rathore, who is known for his organisational skills, along with former Uttar Pradesh minister Suresh Rana was assigned micro-level responsibilities and tasked to mobilise the cadre in at least 30 constituencies each in Bengal.
Rathore and Rana oversaw a cluster of constituencies, while focusing on booth-level security and countering local intimidation. Rana had played an important role in Haryana, Delhi, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections too.
Many Uttar Pradesh BJP functionaries and MLAs like PN Pathak and Ajay Singh were also deputed to step up the spadework in Bengal elections.
BJP sources said given the strategic importance of this victory, senior leadership from Uttar Pradesh and other states will attend the swearing-in to mark the party's historic expansion in the state.
The swearing-in on May 9 coincides with the 25th day of Baisakh (Rabindra Jayanti), the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, which the BJP is utilising to connect with Bengal's cultural identity. Analysts said that by invoking Tagore, BJP is trying to counter the long-standing criticism of being an “outsider” in Bengal politics. “This will help blend cultural symbolism with political expansion,” said an analyst.
BJP sources said the party will project its Bengal win not merely as an electoral triumph but also as an outcome of a meticulously coordinated organisational experiment in which the Uttar Pradesh unit played a crucial role. A senior BJP functionary said the deployment of Uttar Pradesh BJP leaders reflected the party's belief that its strongest organisational ecosystem lies in the Hindi heartland, particularly Uttar Pradesh, where Assembly elections are due early next year.
