Former Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Dinesh Sharma, is set to take on a new set of responsibilities. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominated him for the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. Now, it is almost certain that he will be elected unopposed, as Sharma is the only candidate to have filed his nomination for the by-election. The bypoll was necessitated owing to the demise of the incumbent parliamentarian, Hardwar Dubey, who was also a member of the BJP.
Dinesh Sharma filed his nomination in the presence of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, co-Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, as well as the party’s state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary. Sharma, who is a well-known Brahmin leader in the state, was made the Deputy Chief Minister when the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
Later, however, the Deputy Chief Minister’s position was given to Brajesh Pathak, who is also a Brahmin face, in 2022. Now, yet again, the party has placed Dinesh Sharma at the forefront as its Brahmin face ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Following this, it remains to be seen how successful this experiment will be for the BJP. Next year, the country will have Lok Sabha elections, and all political parties are preparing in their own way.
All parties active in the state are working hard to strike a balance between their traditional vote banks and keep their trust intact while trying to attract new voters. In the state, where the Congress is trying to regain its foothold by appointing a Brahmin face as the state president, the party is also celebrating the birth anniversary of former Chief Minister Kamalapati Tripathi. Therefore, it was considered that a Brahmin face would be most suitable for the vacant seat left by the sudden demise of Hardwar Dubey. In this regard, the party’s high command has found Dinesh Sharma to be the most suitable candidate. Another reason behind this decision is that Dinesh Sharma has better relations with the top leaders of the party. Moreover, Dinesh Sharma has been considered a leader who stays away from groupism or factional politics. In addition to this, he has extensive experience in student politics, state politics, and now he is actively involved in central politics as well. A quick look at Sharma’s political career reveals that he has served as a professor of commerce at Lucknow University and has also been the Mayor of Lucknow for two consecutive terms. Prior to this, in 1987, he was given his first major responsibility as the President of Lucknow University Student Union. Then, in 1991, he was appointed as the State Vice President of the BJP Youth Wing. From 1993 to 1998, Sharma served as the State President of the BJP Youth Wing. In 2006, he was elected as the Mayor of Lucknow for the first time, and he continued to hold that position until he was made the Deputy Chief Minister in the first term of the Yogi Adityanath government when the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017.
