Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired the second round of Uttar Pradesh core group meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held at the party headquarters in the national capital on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, after the first round of meeting, Shah took over as three sitting BJP MLAs including Swami Prasad Maurya quit the party, said sources.
Besides Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, state election incharge Dharmendra Pradhan, party general secretary BL Santosh and BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh were present at the meeting. BJP president JP Nadda joined the meeting virtually.
The meeting was held to discuss the poll strategy and deliberate on the name of the probable candidates who will be put before the Central Election Committee (CEC) in a couple of days.
"BJP is trying to bring back Swami Prasad Maurya and other three MLAs who quit on Tuesday. Also, those candidates who did not perform well and have disappointed the public will not get tickets again," sources said.
The first round of meeting on Tuesday continued till late evening.
With just weeks ahead of the commencement of Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Cabinet Minister in the Yogi Adityanath government Dara Singh Chauhan on Wednesday resigned from his position citing neglect of Dalits, farmers, and the state of unemployment by the government.
This comes a day after cabinet minister Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from his position in the government after which three MLAs followed suit and resigned from the party.
Elections for the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly will be held in seven phases. The polling will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.
In the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party bagged 312 seats out of the 403-seat Uttar Pradesh Assembly while Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) won 19 and Congress could manage to win only seven seats. The rest of the seats were bagged by other candidates.
( With inputs from ANI )
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