Party president Amit Shah has asked the state leaders to work on the roadmap to take on the Congress
The BJP's faceless battles have become a cause of concern not just in Uttar Pradesh, but also Uttarakhand. There is worry in the state unit that absence of a chief ministerial candidate could give an edge to Congress's Harish Rawat.
BJP president Amit Shah, who began an exercise of separate meetings with core committees of states to take stock of the organisational aspects, is understood to have asked the Uttarakhand party leaders to get their act together. However, the question of a chief ministerial face eluded the meeting on Monday evening.
With the state going to polls in around six months, there is apprehension in the party that time is running out, while Rawat is lodging cases against nine rebel Congress MLAs who joined the BJP.
A BJP leader said that the fight in the state is not against the Congress, but Rawat. The chief minister is projecting himself as victim of the BJP's "game plan" and the sting operations. On the other hand, the BJP, which is in a direct fight against the Congress in the state, so far appears to be heading for a collective leadership.
The BJP fears that projecting a face in a state, where the party has several veterans including four former chief ministers, and aspirants could bring out the internal fissures, sources said.
The state leaders include BC Khanduri and Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, both former chief ministers, but neither have age on their side. While Khanduri, an MP from Garhwal, is 81, Koshiyari, MP from Nainital, is nearing 75, the unwritten cut off age for ministers and chief ministers in the Modi regime. Besides them, there is Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, MP from Haridwar, who had become chief minister in 2009 at 50, Ajay Bhatt, 56-year-old leader of the opposition in the assembly, who also holds the post of state party president and Anil Baluni, a national party spokesperson in Shah's team.
Former Congress veteran Vijay Bahuguna,69, who rebelled against Rawat and joined BJP, was also a chief minister. However, sources said the leadership was unlikely to project a former Congress leader as the party's face.
Shah has asked the state leaders to work on the roadmap to take on the Congress. This includes two yatras, conferences of Dalit communities and strengthening the organisation. At the meeting, Shah's focus was on organisational matters, sources said.
With three examples before them– Assam where the BJP projected Sarbananda Sonowal and won, Bihar where it fought with a collective leadership and Delhi where it projected outsider Kiran Bedi as the face–some leaders in the state want the party to toe the Assam line. Besides, in Uttarakhand the BJP, which has made Congress-mukt Bharat its theme, is pitted against the Congress.
Team of veterans
The BJP fears that projecting a face in a state, where the party has several veterans including four former chief ministers, and aspirants could bring out the internal fissures, sources said.
The state leaders include BC Khanduri and Bhagat Singh Koshiyari, both former chief ministers, but neither have age on their side. While Khanduri, an MP from Garhwal, is 81, Koshiyari, MP from Nainital, is nearing 75, the unwritten cut off age for ministers and chief ministers in the Modi regime. Besides them, there is Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, MP from Haridwar, who had become chief minister in 2009 at 50, Ajay Bhatt, 56-year-old leader of the opposition in the assembly, who also holds the post of state party president and Anil Baluni, a national party spokesperson in Amit Shah's team.
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 "Harish Rawat")
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