In what is being seen as an attempt to brief the party MPs from Uttar Pradesh on the plan of action for the early next 2022 assembly elections in the state and assign appropriate roles, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday had held a breakfast meeting with them.
The meeting which was held at Prime Minister Modi’s official residence cum office here was attended by the first batch of 40 MPs from Uttar Pradesh. Interestingly, party MP and Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Misra Teni, in the eye of a storm over Lakhimpur Kheri incident, was reportedly conspicuous by his absence.
It is learnt that there was no specific agenda for the Prime Minister’s meeting with the party MPs from Uttar Pradesh. It was the first part of the interaction. Modi is expected to meet the next batch of the MPs from the state in another meeting, sources said.
It was Prime Minister Modi’s fourth such interaction with party Members of Parliament from various states in course of the ongoing winter session of Parliament. The Prime Minister is reported to have asked the party MPs from UP to proactively engage with people in their respective constituencies. Modi reportedly asked the MPs to “engage more with people and shun VIP culture”.
The Prime Minister’s meeting with the BJP MPs assumes significance in light of the ensuing assembly polls in UP and more significantly the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. A lot is, however, banking on the BJP’s showing in the UP polls if the party wants to come back to power at the Centre.
With the poll set back in West Bengal assembly polls weighing heavily in the mind of the party’s polls managers, the BJP leadership is leaving no stone unturned to romp home in Uttar Pradesh, political experts maintain.
Meanwhile, the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party is engaged in a verbal duel over the development of Kashi Vishwanath Corridor developed at a cost of Rs 339 crore. The corridor was inaugurated early this week on Monday by Prime Minister Modi. He had then in a veiled attack blamed the opposition for doing precious little to develop the pilgrim town.
Notwithstanding the verbal duel, the numbers have been reassuring the party ahead of the polls. The BJP had won 312 seats in the last assembly polls in UP. The party had then secured 39.67 per cent of the vote share. The SP, BSP and Congress could just manage 47, 19 and 7 seats respectively.
The Prime Minister is learnt to have advised MPs to keep the organisation above everything else. The MPs who had earlier interacted with the PM however later said that the UP polls did not figure in their interaction with him. The Lakhimpur Kheri incident also did not figure, sources claimed.
Modi reportedly asked them to ask more questions in the Lok Sabha and raise issues of concern to their respective constituencies. He also discussed Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav with the party MPs from UP, it was learnt.