UP polls is clearly top priority for Modi and Amit Shah

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take centre stage to address a rally in Saharanpur, in western Uttar Pradesh, on May 26, he will apparently be talking about the achievements of his government. But, in reality, he will be blowing the election bugle for the all-important state of Uttar Pradesh.

To celebrate two years of Modi government, the party has formed 30 teams of four-five people each and all these teams will visit about five to six places in as many states. The team will consist of a cabinet minister, a minister of state, an office-bearer and a couple of members of the concerned state unit. Though the exact dates are yet to be announced, a closer look at the list reveals an interesting detail. All cabinet ministers and MoS have one mandatory stop in Uttar Pradesh.

So while Sushma Swaraj, along with MoS Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, will visit Noida, Arun Jaitley along with MoS Upendra Kushwaha, will visit Lucknow. Venkaiah Naidu along with Jayant Sinha will visit Allahabad, whereas Nitin Gadkari with MoS YS Chaudhary will visit Kanpur.

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar along with MoS Vijay Sampla will visit Ghaziabad, while Suresh Prabhu along with MoS Sanjeev Balyan and Ram Madhav will visit Meerut. Sadanand Gowda along with MoS Nihalchand will visit Aligarh. Uma Bharti, along with MoS GM Siddeshwara and Murlidhar Rao, will visit Bareilly.

It is clear from this itinerary that the government is using the two-year occasion to launch a blitzkrieg election campaign in Uttar Pradesh. The state saw BJP win 73 seats in 2014 Lok Sabha polls and provided them an easy ride to the throne in Delhi.

For the BJP, winning Uttar Pradesh is an absolute must if it wants to approach the 2019 general elections on a political high. There is a feeling within the party that it has been long since a politically important state, such as UP, has seen a BJP government.

Apart from all these official engagements, BJP national president Amit Shah will also be attending two or three important functions besides keeping a close vigil on the state. He is, of course, aware that this was the state which earned him the moniker "Chanakya" and losing UP will pretty much undo most of the political capital that he has earned since 2014.

According to a senior BJP leader, "The BJP, especially Amit Shah and PM Modi, will go with all that they have for Assembly elections in UP as they know how much this victory will mean for the morale of the cadre and the fortune of the party, especially because it will be so close to the next general elections."

He, however, also sounded a word of caution that he fears putting all eggs in the UP basket alone could pretty much result in a horrid blowback, like in Delhi. "In Delhi Assembly election, every single MP and minister was asked to address six rallies at least. Imagine it was close to 2,000 rallies for a paltry 70 Assembly seats, that were originally envisaged and soon the overkill as well as the perfunctory manner in which those rallies were done and its after-effect was also visible."

These caveats of overdoing notwithstanding, the party and the government has decided to go all guns blazing when it comes to Uttar Pradesh and it is hopeful that when results will come, it will be commensurate with the efforts they have put in. The party has already pressed its 325 MPs to spread the message that this government is for the poor and their development only.

Whether this is going be an over-centralised election campaign or will be left mostly to the state leaders with close supervision from the Centre also depends on the kind of result the BJP sees in Assam.