Lucknow: With UP elections less than a year away, BJP state leadership on Friday held its core committee meeting in Lucknow, focusing on strengthening coordination between govt and the party organisation and giving greater momentum to its month-long Sewa Sankalp Abhiyan to mark PM Modi’s birthday on Sept 17.The meeting was attended by BJP national general secretary (organisation) BL Santhosh, UP incharge Vinod Tawde, chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary and state general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Singh.The deliberations assume significance as BJP seeks to translate Modi govt’s welfare and development initiatives into a broader political outreach in UP, while activating its organisational machinery at the grassroots ahead of the Assembly elections.A key thrust of the meeting was on closer coordination between the state govt and BJP organisation for implementing the Sewa Sankalp Abhiyan. The leadership stressed that the campaign should not remain confined to symbolic service activities but instead become an effective medium for reaching beneficiaries of various central and state govt schemes.BJP plans to use its organisational network to establish direct contact with beneficiaries, explain the benefits of govt programmes and expand the party’s outreach beyond its traditional support base. The emphasis on beneficiary contact is significant given BJP strategy in recent elections, where welfare delivery and direct beneficiary mobilisation emerged as important components of its campaign.The meeting underlined the need to give special attention to youth, women and farmers — the three groups that are expected to be central to BJP’s electoral strategy in 2027.Santhosh is next scheduled to hold a key organisational discussion with the state leadership on Saturday.While welfare schemes and employment-related initiatives are expected to form a major component of the youth outreach, women beneficiaries remain an important constituency for the party because of schemes relating to housing, LPG, sanitation, financial inclusion and social security.The leadership, sources said, appears keen to convert govt’s welfare footprint into sustained political engagement at the grassroots rather than waiting for the formal election campaign to begin.Another important component of the deliberations was the mobilisation of BJP cadre for forthcoming grassroots campaigns by the party’s top leaders including PM Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president Nitin Nabin. The objective is to ensure that the visits of the central leadership are backed by a fully activated organisational network at the booth, shakti kendra and mandal levels.The party has been trying to activate its network across the state’s six organisational regions and 98 districts, with emphasis on booth-level management and direct voter contact.The core committee meeting thus served as a bridge between govt’s delivery mechanism and the party’s electoral machinery. The challenge before BJP is to ensure that welfare beneficiaries are not merely identified as recipients of govt schemes but are integrated into the party’s wider outreach programme.
