NEW DELHI, Jun 10 (TNN) : With just three days to go for the BJP's national executive meeting in Allahabad, speculation escalated that home minister Rajnath Singh could play the "lead role" in the party's campaign for the Uttar Pradesh polls.
Although the party has steadfastly refrained from spelling out whether it plans to project anyone as its CM candidate, there was insistent buzz that the leadership could consider giving Singh, a former UP CM, a prominent role in the campaign even if it does not necessarily declare him to be its choice for the top political office in the state.
The speculation, which muscled its way into primetime TV news, was scotched by party sources who stressed that no decision was taken yet on going into the polls with a declared CM candidate or, who should be appointed the chairman of the campaign committee.
We recommend this Video for you
The hypothesis that the party would enter the UP arena with a CM candidate has gained strength after the party's victory in Assam where it had spelt out its choice, Sarbananda Sonowal, months ahead of the contest. As against this, the party did not declare its CM candidate in Bihar and lost to the Nitish Kumar-Lalu Prasad combine.
However, top party sources said the issue of whether BJP would declare its CM candidate in UP was still open, and there was no certainty that the Assam experiment could be replicated in the the largest state. "We don't believe in one-size-fits-all school of politics. We won in Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand without projecting anybody, while we lost in Delhi where we had pitched Kiran Bedi as our answer to Arvind Kejriwal," a senior party source said.
The BJP should get someone young and progressive like they did in Assam and Maha. Rajnath does not have the level of energy that will allow him to compete in the election or govern the state.
The party will tread cautiously in UP also because of the caste divisions which define the state. "It is an intriguing maze of animosities and rivalries and we have to be very careful about how a move plays out with different constituencies whose interests have often been at odds," said another senior source who is involved in the UP deliberations.
Among the UP veterans who are still active in politics, Rajnath is arguably the only one with recognition across the sprawling state. However, even his well-wishers acknowledge that his appeal is not uniformly spread across all caste groups, with at least some continuing to be wary of him despite his efforts to dispel their reservations, a factor which, among several others, will be in play when the leadership decides to project, that is, if at all, someone as its CM candidate or, even appoint the president of the campaign committee.