BJP chief picks in-charges in 17 states for 2019

New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah on Wednesday appointed the party’s in-charges for the Lok Sabha polls in 17 states, drafting in Union minister Prakash Javadekar for steering the campaign in Rajasthan and Thawarchand Gehlot, another minister, for Uttarakhand. Govardhan Jhadapia, a Gujarat leader, Dushyant Gautam, a party vice-president, and Narottam Mishra, who is from Madhya Pradesh, will be in charge of Uttar Pradesh, a politically crucial state, where the BJP is likely to face a tough challenge from a prospective alliance of the Samajwadi party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.

Interestingly, Mr Jhadapia had left the BJP in 2007 complaining against the “autocratic” attitude of the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi.  He joined forces with Keshubhai Patel in 2012 and formed the Gujarat Parivartan Party, which failed to make a mark in the polls. He later returned to the BJP and worked for the party in the 2017 Gujarat Assembly polls. Mr Jhadapia was home minister in Gujarat during the 2002 riots. In 2014, then BJP president Rajnath Singh appointed Amit Shah as the party’s election in-charge in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP won 71 out of 80 seats, more than the UPA’s overall tally and much more than the earlier peak of 57 seats in the 1998 elections.

In Bihar the task has been assigned to general secretary Bhupender Yadav, while Anil Jain will be in charge of Chhattisgarh. BJP president Amit Shah and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar have laid the groundwork for the 2019 Lok Sabha battle. Amit Shah, in the presence of JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar and Lok Janshakti Party chief and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan had finalised seat-sharing in Bihar recently. Mr Shah said in New Delhi that the BJP and JD(U) would fight 17 seats each, and the LJP the remaining six in politically-crucial Bihar.

The BJP also appointed in-charges and co-incharges for several other states, including Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Punjab, Telangana and Sikkim, among others.