“Yogi Adityanath is the best Chief Minister in the country, he is doing the best work as CM,” said Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and Yogi’s bete noire, Keshav Prasad Maurya, at a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers’ meeting in Mirzapur on Sunday.
The statement left many political observers flummoxed as Maurya has been at loggerheads with the CM since the Lok Sabha election results in the state, which saw the BJP’s tally fall by a big number. Maurya had also camped for many days in Delhi and said to have complained against the CM’s working style, including over-dependence on the bureaucracy.
But with the Centre throwing its weight behind Yogi and ruling out any change of the Chief Minister in Uttar Pradesh, Maurya seems to have fallen in line for now. He had recently also started attending cabinet meetings chaired by the Chief Minister, after skipping at least two such meetings after the election results. Maurya is seen campaigning these days for the 10 assembly by-polls that are slated soon in the state.
This is the first time since the Lok Sabha results that Maurya has publicly praised the CM. At the BJP workers’ meeting, Maurya said the party should be confident as it had the world’s most popular leader in Narendra Modi and the country’s most popular Chief Minister in Yogi Adityanath.
The BJP has made no changes in Uttar Pradesh organization or in the Yogi government since the results. An expected Cabinet reshuffle in Uttar Pradesh continues to be awaited while state party chief Bhupendra Chaudhary has also continued in his post. Chaudhary had earlier submitted a detailed report to the Prime Minister and the party leadership on the debacle in UP during the Lok Sabha results.
Sources say any changes in UP at the organisational or cabinet level will only happen post the by-polls for the 10 seats.
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