Don’t Be Surprised If Keshav Prasad Maurya Is Actually The New BJP President

Reports suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will have a new president in place but not before December. Do not be surprised if the president turns out to be Keshav Prasad Maurya. 

Here is the reason why.

The current rut, real or imagined, that the party finds itself in is almost entirely due to its performance in Uttar Pradesh where it suffered unexpected losses in the April-June Lok Sabha elections. 

The feeling of being rudderless, the comments that this time Modi couldn’t inspire people to change their social media profile pictures to that of the national flag, the talk of Modi himself being tired — none of these would have been there had the party held on to its seat and vote share in UP. 

The reverses in Maharashtra were half-expected, and the setback in Bengal was equally brutal. But if the party needs the elusive ‘mojo’ back, it has to turn things around in Uttar Pradesh above all else. 

And what is the problem in Uttar Pradesh? 

Two months after the election results, the general consensus is that the BJP has suffered a significant erosion of support among Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Castes (SC). 

How can the communities be brought back? 

Increasing their representation in government and party is a remedial step but the apprehension is that the needle may not move until the OBC community secures the chief ministership. In the list of OBC candidates, the first name is Keshav Prasad Maurya. 

Maurya has served one term as a Lok Sabha MP and one term as the president of the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit. He has been the deputy chief minister of UP since 2017. 

But you can’t replace Yogi, can you?

Nothing is impossible in politics but that caveat aside, there is no foreseeable arrangement where the BJP replaces Yogi Adityanath. 

Yogi is popular in Uttar Pradesh for delivering a rule of law and order and anecdotal evidence says he enjoys popularity among the party faithful outside the state too. 

While ideally, sannyasins are not to be associated with any caste, Yogi Adityanath is still seen as a representative of the Rajput community. The early years of his tenure also saw allegations that the UP administration favoured one community at the expense of others. 

Although 4 June 2024 did not revive those allegations, it did drive home the need for increasing OBC representation in power for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. 

Ergo, the current situation is as follows: the party needs to regain OBC support in Uttar Pradesh. Appointing an OBC leader as chief minister could be a crucial step in addressing this issue. Keshav Prasad Maurya is a prominent OBC leader within the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. However, Yogi Adityanath cannot be replaced. 

So how do you increase the profile of Maurya so much that it sways OBC voters towards BJP, without making him the chief minister? 

Make him the BJP president. 

No union cabinet post outside the Cabinet Committee on Security will make the cut. Organisational appointments like the national vice president are mostly pacifiers for disgruntled leaders. Making Maurya the state unit president might be on the cards but that is not an elevation of profile. That’s a plateau. 

Arguably, in the era of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, even the post of BJP president is not fully autonomous. But once the chief ministership is ruled out, it seems to be the only available position that aligns with the prescribed remedy for the UP BJP: providing more power and representation to the OBCs.

Stranger things have happened in politics, and even more unusual things have occurred in Uttar Pradesh BJP. If KP Maurya were to become BJP’s national president, it would just be the latest entry on that list.