BJP’s Bengal success has its roots in UP’s political turf

State Has Groomed Political Leadership Across PartiesRajiv.Srivastava1Lucknow: The Bengal Assembly elections results have again underscored how Uttar Pradesh functions as a training ground, almost like a university, to groom and nurture political leadership across parties.For the Bharatiya Janata Party in particular, this ecosystem has regularly produced leaders and functionaries who have played key roles in high-stakes electoral battles nationwide.Among those shaped by UP’s political landscape are some prominent names in the BJP pantheon — Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Dharmendra Pradhan, and Sunil Bansal, who has been widely credited as a behind-the-scenes strategist for the Bengal win.Union minister Bhupender Yadav, who was in-charge of the Bengal elections, had earlier handled the BJP’s campaign in UP in 2017 under Om Mathur, reflecting a continuity of leadership forged in the state’s political crucible.Political observers point to UP, alongside Bihar and West Bengal, as among India’s most politically active regions. Yet, UP stands apart for the sheer complexity of its social and electoral dynamics. “In UP, politics and society are deeply intertwined,” Bansal told TOI, contrasting it with states like Gujarat, where political engagement tends to peak only during elections.Sunil Bansal, who is also the incharge of Odisha and Telangana, was instrumental in BJP forming govt in Odisha after over two decades of Naveen Patnaik-led BJD rule.Unlike Bengal’s relatively urban and educated voter base, or Bihar’s own political churn, UP offers a dense mix of caste, community, and grassroots mobilisation—making it, as a senior BJP member put it, a “nursery of politics.”The state’s political lessons cut across party lines. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra made her political debut from UP — first as AICC general secretary for eastern UP in 2019 and later for the entire state in 2020. Notably, many of these leaders are not natives of UP, yet have honed their political skills on its turf.For the BJP, UP remains its largest laboratory. Leaders trained here are routinely deployed across the country, and the Bengal elections were no exception.Early in the campaign, UP BJP members such as JPS Rathore and Suresh Rana were assigned key responsibilities in Bengal. Rathore handled around 35 assembly constituencies in the Medinipur region, while Rana oversaw 28 seats in North 24 Parganas.They were later joined by MPs Mahesh Sharma, Satish Gautam, and Ramesh Awasthi, along with senior functionaries like Swatantra Dev Singh, Swati Singh, PN Pathak and Upendra Tiwari among others who were also deployed in Bengal polls. In all, nearly 9,500 party workers from across the country were deployed during the Bengal battlefield.The campaign strategy was equally granular. Recognising football’s popularity among Bengal’s youth, the BJP organised the Narendra Cup, a tournament featuring 1,200 men’s teams (around 18,000 players) and 253 women’s teams—all in the 18–25 age group, Bansal told TOI.The outreach extended further: engagement with over 19,000 clubs and NGOs, more than 600 programmes across constituencies, and extensive high-decibel campaigning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed 19 rallies and roadshows, while Amit Shah held around 40. Nine chief ministers from BJP-governed states collectively addressed over 100 rallies.Additionally, party workers reached out to more than 6,000 religious and spiritual organisations across the state.With the focus now shifting back to UP, attention will turn to how BJP deploys its seasoned cadre to counter the PDA (Pichda-Dalit-Alpsankhyak) narrative advanced by the Samajwadi Party in the next year’s Assembly elections in the state.