Polls in Bihar and UP thrust double duty on border MPs

Jagdambika Pal, MP from Domariyaganj, was uncertain how he could manage both jobs. This week, he met the party’s UP panchayat election in-charge Shiv Pratap Shukla in Lucknow and reportedly sought his guidance; Shukla reportedly asked him to manage any way he could. Pal told The Indian Express that he has already addressed public meetings in a few Bihar constituencies going to polls in the first phase. “I will address 19 more such public meetings in the next few days,” Pal said.

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Countless residents of Kashi and Gorakhpur have relatives in Bihar, explaining why the party has directed these 12 MPs of Gorakhpur and 11 of Kashi to address meetings there. The BJP is contesting panchayat polls for the first time in UP to build a rural base ahead of the 2017 assembly polls.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will lead the party’s Bihar campaign, is the MP from Varanasi of Kashi region. Union minister Kalraj Mishra is the MP from Deoria of Gorakhpur region while Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha is the MP from Ghazipur of Kashi region. Mishra and Sinha have held rallies for the panchayat polls.

“I will start my tour of Bihar from Bhagalpur,” said Ghosi MP Hari Narain Rajbhar. “The Bihar election is a prestige battle but I will have to divide my time between that election and the UP panchayat polls.”

Maharajganj MP Pankaj Chaudhary said he has so far focused on the panchayat polls but, once he starts travelling, he will keep moving between Bihar and Maharajganj.

Bansgaon MP Kamlesh Paswan, who has received the directive to tour Bihar, said he will find the time, now that selection of panchayat candidates in his Lok Sabha constituency is over and he has completed the first round of his campaign at home. “I will keep coming back to Bansgaon, taking breaks from my campaign in Bihar,” Kamlesh Paswan said.

Kaushambi MP Vinod Kumar Sonkar said he will start touring Bihar with a public meeting in Sasaram on October 6. Before that, he will campaign for panchayat poll candidates.

BJP state general secretary Swatantra Deo Singh has been assigned the job of coordinating with the party’s UP leaders on their trips to Bihar. “I have spoken to several MPs of Kashi and Gorakhpur regions and they will start travelling in the next few days. They had so far been busy with the panchayat polls in their constituencies,” Singh said.

Singh said that party has planned to engage these MPs in villages based on the party’s organisational structure and local caste equations.
The party’s state president, Laxmikant Bajpai, said the MPs have been directed to strike a balance between their campaigns in the two states.