With the 2019 Lok Sabha elections approaching, the Uttar Pradesh unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party is planning organisational changes aimed to improve the party’s performance at the hustings.

BJP national president Amit Shah’s two-day visit to the state is an indicator to the possibility. Shah will be in Mirzapur on July 4 where he will meet the regional organisations. He will then proceed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency of Varanasi where he will address the social media volunteers’ meet. Nearly 2,000 people are expected to participate in it.

Shah is expected to be in Lucknow the same evening, and in Agra on July 5 where he will hold an interactive session with party functionaries to get a feedback on the performance of the BJP’s elected representatives.

The BJP and its ally Apna Dal had won 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats from UP in the 2014 parliamentary elections. The Modi wave and disgruntlement with the then UPA regime had seen caste configurations dissolving and the electorate voting for the lotus.

The scenario is, however, different in 2019. Talks of a grand alliance of the opposition parties to stop the BJP juggernaut have gained momentum.

At the state level, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have made known their keenness for an alliance. The two parties have already experimented successfully with the same in the bypolls to the prestigious Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana Lok Sabha seats. The BJP was trounced in all three. Party sources said Shah’s visit had to be seen against this background too.

The BJP is currently focusing on wooing the Dalits and the Backward Castes to ensure a better performance for itself. There are talks that people from these two sections may be appointed to important posts.

The name of national general secretary Bhupinder Yadav is already doing the rounds as UP in-charge in the run-up to the polls. What has given credence to this possibility is the fact that the present in-charge and party vice-president Om Prakash Mathur has not visited this politically crucial state for the last eight months.

It is being observed with great keenness whether Mathur will be present with Shah at the meet, or the vice-president’s services will be utilised elsewhere considering that assembly elections are due in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh at the end of this year.

Modi’s visit to Kabir Chaura and his public meeting at Maghar (Sant Kabir Nagar district) recently was seen as an attempt to woo the ‘Mahadalits’ and Most Backward Castes (MBCs) as the BJP gradually casts itself in election mode.