For 2027 UP polls, BJP names 70 unit chiefs — 2 out of 3 OBC and Brahmins

The party said the names were declared after a two-month-long election process and the aim is to reach 50 per cent reservation target for OBC, Scheduled Castes (SC) and women in the state unit. In the current list of 70, there are, however, just five women and six leaders from the SC community.

Most of the chosen unit chiefs belong to the OBC community (26) and Brahmins (20). About 18 belong to Thakur, Bhumihar, Kayastha and Vaishya communities.

Among the prominent OBC leaders to head the district/city units are Harishankar Raju Yadav (Mathura City), Vinod Rajbhar (Lalganj), Ramashray Maurya (Mau), Pradeep Patel (Jhansi), Fatehchand Verma (Farrukhabad), and Mishri Lal Verma (Shravasti).

As far as Brahmin representation is concerned, the party has chosen Janardan Dwivedi (Gorakhpur), Vivekananda Mishra (Basti), Sanjau Mishra (Ballia), Sushil Tripathi (Sultanpur), and Deepak Mishra, (Bhadohi).

In central Uttar Pradesh, there is equal representation of OBC and Brahmin with Vijay Maurya being declared as the new Lucknow district unit chief, while Anand Dwivedi being Lucknow City head. Rae Bareli has been given to a Schedule Caste leader, Budhi Lal Pasi; while Bahraich, Sitapur, Unnao as well as Amethi districts have gone to the leaders from the Brahmin community.

Two Bhumihar representatives are Om Prakash Rai, who is Ghazipur unit head; and Duresh Rai, who has been elected Kushinagar district head.

Among five women chiefs, Nirmala Paswan will head the party in Prayagraj Gangapar unit, Neetu Singh in Sant Kabir Nagar, Renuka Sachan in Kanpur Dehat, Mamta Singh Rajput in Mainpuri, and Shilpi Gupta in Shahjahanpur City.

Pradeep Agrahari has been named BJP president of Varanasi city, which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency.

In Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s home district Gorakhpur, Janardan Tiwari has been appointed as the district president, and Devesh Srivastava as Gorakhpur city president.

Congratulating the new unit chiefs, state BJP chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary said, “I am confident that you will play a crucial role in taking the party’s policies to the grassroots and strengthening the organization at all levels.”

“We had started the exercise in September last year with membership drives. Apart from the 75 administrative districts, we have a total of 98 units in the state, with additional Mahanagar (City) units in the towns with more than 5 lakh population,” the state BJP chief added.

On not declaring the heads of 28 units, Chaudhary said: “Out of the 28, there are about 8-9 districts, where there were some technical flaws, and the election could not take place. However, in the remaining 20 districts, our attempt was to ensure that the heads are chosen so that there is 50 per cent representation of OBC, SC and women in the state.”

Among the significant district and city units, where district and city presidents have not yet been declared include Ayodhya district as well as Ayodhya City unit. Even the chief of the Varanasi district unit is yet to be declared.

Sources said the target was to have at least 10 women chiefs as well as 10-12 Scheduled Caste representatives, which the party would try to fill in the remaining 28 posts. Sources said that even among the OBCs, the party is looking for representation of communities like Prajapati, Nishad, and Chauhan.

In his message on X, CM Adityanath said, “Heartiest congratulations to all the newly appointed district and metropolitan presidents of BJP in Uttar Pradesh! I am confident that you will strengthen the organization by upholding the party’s policies and principles and contribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of security and good governance.”

In a first, the party declared the names online with the event being called “Sangathan ka Parva”. The names were declared at the district level in presence of respective public representatives from the region, ministers etc as well as election officers.

A task centre was set up at party state headquarters in Lucknow where state unit president Bhupendra Chaudhary, general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh, and state election officer Mahendra Nath Pandey monitored the announcement process.

The Information Technology (IT) cell of the party was assigned the task of making arrangements for online monitoring in every district.