Kept personal egos aside for nation: Zadafia on being appointed UP's Lok Sabha polls in-charge

A day after Gordhan Zadafia was appointed by the BJP as an in-charge of Uttar Pradesh for next year's general elections, the former Gujarat minister said he was "touched" by the responsibility given to him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"I am touched by responsibility given by the Prime Minister to me. I have worked with him for almost three decades. What happened earlier is past, I had merged my party again in BJP in 2014 realising personal egos should be kept aside for sake of nation," Zadafia told ANI.

On Wednesday, the BJP handed over the 2019 Lok Sabha election responsibility of the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh to Gordhan Zadafia, a former Gujarat minister who had fallen out with Narendra Modi when he was the Chief Minister of the state.

Zadafia, a 64-year-old RSS veteran, was given the charge of UP as part of organisational changes made by the BJP for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Considered close to sidelined BJP leader Sanjay Joshi, Zadafia had turned a Modi-critic after being dropped from the Gujarat Cabinet in 2002.

He had subsequently left the party and floated Maha Gujarat Janata Party, which even contested polls against the BJP in 2007 but failed to make any mark.

Later, he merged his party with Gujarat Parivartan Party headed by another disgruntled BJP leader Keshubhai Patel and contested polls against the BJP, but again failed to make any impact.

In 2014, he returned to the BJP, which made him in-charge of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday along with the party's National Vice President Dushyant Kumar Gautam and Madhya Pradesh leader Narottam Mishra, for the Lok Sabha elections.