Home turf of CM Yogi, new UP BJP chief, Gorakhpur back in focus as key power centre

“Pankaj Chaudhary is the BJP’s senior-most MP in the state. CM Yogi Adityanath, currently an MLA, was an MLC in his first term as the CM, prior to which he had been a five-time MP from Gorakhpur. We hope Chaudhary’s appointment will improve coordination between the party organisation and the government,” a senior state BJP leader said.

Gorakhpur, which falls in eastern UP or the backward Purvanchal region, shot into the spotlight in 2017 after the BJP picked the head of the Gorakhnath Peeth and then sitting Gorakhpur MP Adityanath as its CM face.

Born and brought up in Gorakhpur, Chaudhary began his political career as a corporator and later became the Deputy Mayor of the Gorakhpur Municipal Corporation. He is the fifth leader to serve as state BJP chief during Adityanath’s eight-year CM tenure so far, following Keshav Prasad Maurya (from central UP), Mahendra Nath Pandey (eastern UP), Swatantra Dev Singh (Bundelkhand) and Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary (western UP).

Adityanath’s rise has overshadowed other senior BJP leaders from the state. Other prominent leaders from Gorakhpur include Himachal Pradesh Governor Shiv Pratap Shukla, Union Minister Kamlesh Paswan and Rajya Sabha MP Radha Mohan Das Agrawal.

“The new UP BJP president’s first challenge will be ticket distribution for next year’s panchayat polls, as his followers and Adityanath’s supporters may vie for the same seats in the Gorakhpur region,” a party leader said.

In a bid to strike a balance, the BJP elevated Agrawal to the Rajya Sabha in July 2022, months after he was denied a ticket to accommodate Adityanath from his Gorakhpur Urban Assembly constituency. He is currently the BJP in-charge for Karnataka and Rajasthan.

“After Adityanath became the CM for the second term in 2022, the appointments of Agrawal and Shukla were seen as the BJP’s attempts to balance power, as the three leaders belong to upper castes — Thakur (Adityanath), Brahmin (Shukla) and Vaishya (Agrawal) — which form the party’s core support base. Kurmi OBC leader Pankaj Chaudhary’s elevation could be a move to reach out to the OBC voter base and also strengthen the party organisation’s influence in the region,” another senior BJP leader said.

Rejecting suggestions of Gorakhpur becoming a power centre, BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said, “Only parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress turn constituencies of chief ministers and party chiefs into power centres. Just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hails from Gujarat but represents Varanasi in Parliament, is ensuring all-round development across the country, Adityanath is developing all regions of the state. The BJP will contest the 2026 panchayat polls and the 2027 Assembly elections as a united force.”

Adityanath, Shukla and Agrawal share an interesting history. In 2002, when the BJP was sharply divided in UP, Shukla — then a four-time MLA from Gorakhpur and the party’s official candidate — lost to Agrawal in his seat, who was backed by Adityanath and contested as a candidate of the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM). Agrawal later joined the BJP and held the seat until 2017.

In 2020, Agrawal drew the BJP’s ire after he claimed in a social media post that the state police was “losing its effectiveness”. Though the remark prompted a show-cause notice, the issue was closed after he “explained” his position to the party leadership.

Shukla, meanwhile, kept a low profile after his 2002 defeat and focused on organisational work. He was made a Rajya Sabha MP in 2016 and in the following year he was appointed as the Union Minister of State for Finance in the first Modi government. Although he was dropped from the Cabinet in 2019, he was named the Governor of Himachal Pradesh in 2023.