Yogi vs Keshav Maurya rift deepens? All is not well in UP BJP

The post said that “no one is bigger than the organisation” and the BJP workers are the "pride".

The tweet began with the words: “The organization is bigger than the government; the pain of the workers is my pain.” This tweet, which is reportedly seen as aimed at UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, follows an hour-long meeting Maurya separately held with BJP's national president JP Nadda in Delhi on Tuesday (July 16) evening.

Though the meeting was ostensibly held to discuss the strategy ahead of the bypolls to 10 assembly seats in the state, news reports said the meeting was to sort out the infighting in the BJP party unit in UP. Trouble was clearly brewing between the party and the UP government.

Chaudhary Bhupendra Singh, the state BJP president, was also separately closeted with Nadda and also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, added news reports.

Second time

This is the second time Maurya, who had once eyed the CM’s chair, is bringing up the issue of the party being above the government.

On July 14, when Nadda presided over the state executive meeting in Lucknow where Yogi Adityanath, the other deputy CM Brajesh Pathak and around 3,500 delegates were present, Maurya brought up the sarkar vs sangathan issue.

Addressing the meeting, Maurya had said no government was bigger than the organisation. “I am first a party worker, then a deputy CM,” he declared, insisting that the government and all ministers, MLAs, and public representatives should respect party workers.

Maurya did not stop there. After the meeting, he posted on X, repeating the same line — ‘Sangathan Se Badi Koi Sarkaar Nahi Hoti…har ek karyakarta hamara gaurav hai.. (Organisation is bigger than the government…No one is above the organisation. Every worker is our pride’.

Though some political observers felt this statement was meant to quell the dissent in the BJP state unit, others said it was the outcome of a fall-out between Adityanath and Maurya.

Trouble brewing in BJP state unit

Trouble has been brewing in the BJP in UP after the general election debacle. The news of the discord between the two BJP leaders after the Lok Sabha polls surfaced when Maurya did not attend government meetings and even skipped cabinet meetings twice. It was his way of protesting against the Adityanath government. Maurya's lengthy stay in Delhi after the Lok Sabha election results meeting BJP leaders and key ministers of the Union government further fanned the tensions between the two leaders, said experts.

PTI reported that there was a strong speculation of a rift between Adityanath and Maurya, with a number of BJP leaders admitting in private that the chief minister's working style is one of the reasons behind the party's loss in the state..

BJP MLA Ramesh Mishra was heard saying in a video that the party was in a 'precarious' state. Mishra urged the central leadership to step in.

Organisational changes

According to political observers, the BJP high command is planning to make some structural changes in the party in UP. Maurya, who is an OBC face of the party and has RSS backing, may be given a key organisational position in the party, said reports.

BJP insiders felt that cracks in the party will only be exploited by the Opposition parties.

In a major blow to the BJP-led NDA, the INDIA bloc romped home in 43 seats out of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP. The NDA won just 33 seats, down from 62 it had won in the 2019 LS polls. While the Congress mocked the "infighting coming out to surface and public catfight" in the BJP review meeting, Samajwadi Party chief too took a swipe at the BJP.

Yadav said that the party is busy fighting for power, and ignoring the administration and governance in UP. 

He said, "The Chief Minister himself is admitting that there is corruption. Their own MLAs are now speaking out openly. The BJP wants to stand by its defeated candidates. They have become weak. The public is suffering in the fight for the chair between the deputy chief minister and the chief minister."