It seems BJP is putting up a brave front and is pretty confident of poll gains in UP. The top leadership believes that this time, the lotus will bloom in the state, that too on its own, sans alliances. Naturally, party boss Amit Shah cannot afford to repeat the mistakes made in Bihar. There, the MPs had wantonly distributed tickets to people of their choice.
But this time around, the ticket distribution is a tad tough. Candidates’ names are coming up from the primary level to the District Committee, which are sending them up to the state committee, and finally, the names will be discussed in the core committee. The latter include Sunil Bansal, Dinesh Sharma, Laxmikant Vajpayee, Keshav Prasad Maurya, Om Mathur, and Shiv Prakash. This committee will select one or more names and send it to the Parliamentary Board for finalised. Party sources whisper that after the completion of National Executive meet there will be a Parliamentary Board meeting. The final candidates will be decided and will be declared by the Board.
BJP is quite confident this time as the names of Chief Ministerial candidates have been discussed. Three of them are already off the block: Minister for state Manoj Sinha, BJP State president Keshaw Prasad Maurya and Lucknow Mayor Dinesh Sharma. The latter has been election in charge in Gujarat too, and is among the closest to Amit Shah, so scuttlebutt is he will win the race.