 "Arvind Kumar Sharma")
January this year was uncharacteristically restive for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh. In the winter month there was hot gossip revolving around the sudden entry of retired bureaucrat Arvind Kumar Sharma, considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, into the saffron party’s state citadel.
A 1988 batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer, Sharma, who was serving as secretary in the Union MSME department, had on January 11 taken voluntary retirement and on January 14 joined the BJP in the presence of UP BJP President Swatantra Dev Singh.
The very next day, he was nominated candidate for the
