In UP and Uttarakhand, BJP banks on turncoats, dynasts & Hindutva warriors

Party names 64 candidates in 70-member Uttarakhand assembly, 149 for phases 1 and 2 of UP polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party will rely on dynasts and turncoats in Uttarakhand, and on its Hindutva champions, legislators who had been booked for their alleged role in Muzaffarnagar communal riots of 2013, in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP today announced 64 candidates in the 70-member Uttarakhand assembly, and 149 candidates for the seats going to polls in phase 1 and 2 of UP assembly polls.

The BJP's central election committee, headed by party chief Amit Shah, had met on Sunday to decide on the list, which was eventually released 24-hours later on Monday evening. The delay was not only because of lack of consensus, but also to accommodate last minute turncoats.

On Monday morning, former chief of Congress' Uttarakhand unit Yashpal Arya joined the BJP. His son Sanjeev Arya and former Congress legislator from Yamunotri Kedar Singh Rawat also joined the party in the presence of Shah. By evening, the BJP announced Yashpal Arya as its candidate from Bajpur, his son Sanjeev from Nainital and Kedar Singh Rawat from Yamunotri. A six time Congress legislator, Arya has influence among Dalits in the Kumaon region.

Apart from Arya, the BJP list also accommodated nine of the ten Congress rebels, including Harak Singh Rawat and Rekha Arya, that had joined the party last year. The only exception was former Uttarakhand CM Vijay Bahuguna, a sitting legislator from Sitarganj. But the list declared his younger son Saurabh as the BJP candidate from Sitarganj.

Senior party leader JP Nadda said the party has retained all its 31 sitting legislators. Another dynast to make her debut is former CM and Lok Sabha member BC Khanduri's daughter Ritu Khandoori Bhushan from Yamkeshwar constituency.

In Punjab, the party declared remaining six of its 23 candidates. It had announced 17 candidates last week. The remaining six seats had sitting BJP legislators. Of these, the party retained four sitting legislators, replaced the legislator from Anandpur Sahib constituency and gave the ticket to son of its sitting legislator from Jalandhar (West) constituency.

The UP list was more intriguing as the party declared 149 of the 403 candidates. These are the seats going to polls in the first two of the seven phased election in the state. It didn't declare candidates from seats in Lucknow and Sahibabad.

Lucknow is Home Minister Rajnath Singh's constituency. Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj is an aspirant from Sahibabad, while Congress rebel Rita Bahuguna Joshi is an aspirant from Lucknow Cantonment seat against Samajwadi Party's Aparna Yadav. Aparna is married to SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger son.

While the party has relied on caste balance by announcing candidates who have crossed over from SP and Bahujan Samaj Party, its names for western UP have such sitting legislators as Suresh Rana and Sangeet Som. The two were accused in the Muzaffarnagar communal riots case. The BJP hopes for a strong showing in western UP, which could help it repeat its 2014 Lok Sabha success in the state. Another notable name in the UP list is that of party national secretary Shrikant Sharma, who will contest from Mathura.