BJP president Nitin Gadkari loves confusing party cadres and voters by announcing change in his party’s chief ministerial candidates with almost every phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh.
The maverick leader has already announced Kalraj Misra and Surya Pratap Shahi as the party’s chief ministerial candidates and now, while campaigning in Charkhari in Mahoba district, he has gone ahead and announced Ms Uma Bharti as the chief ministerial candidate.
Mr Gadkari’s constant change of stand on the issue has apparently irked senior leaders like Kalraj Misra who has earlier objected to Ms Bharti being anointed the chief ministerial candidate saying that she happened to be an “outsider”. Though he had hurriedly retracted his statement and safely blamed the media for “distorting my views”, the message to the party cadres was clear.
When Mr Misra was appointed in-charge of UP elections in 2010, it was accepted that he will be projected as chief minister by the party that was keen to win back Brahmin votes from the BSP. Mr Misra happened to be the tallest Brahmin leader in the BJP and observers felt that his presence will help the party regain lost ground among upper caste voters.
Then the BJP president announced that Ms Bharti will take charge of poll management in UP and though this caused considerable resentment in the state party unit, most leaders avoided commenting on the development. Some of them, however, reiterated that this did not put a question mark on the capabilities of the UP leaders.