The BJP on Wednesday appointed a team of eight leaders, including five Union ministers, to micro-manage poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, underscoring the importance of the upcoming elections in the backdrop of the farmers’ agitation, price rise and joblessness.

Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan was made the principal election in-charge. The other Union ministers in the team are Anurag Thakur, Arjun Ram Meghwal, Shobha Karandlaje and Annapurna Devi.

In addition to the eight-member team, six party leaders were appointed and tasked with specific regions of the state, including a Haryana MP assigned to western Uttar Pradesh.

Over five lakh farmers had assembled in western Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar last Sunday and vowed to defeat the BJP in the coming elections if it didn’t repeal the “anti-farmer” farm laws.

The mismanagement of the second Covid wave, rising prices of essential commodities and shrinking job opportunities for the youth have made matters difficult for the BJP.

Internally, there is concern with preliminary feedback from the ground indicating anger even among those regarded as natural backers of the party. The BJP will bank heavily on polarisation to counter anti-incumbency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to celebrate Diwali in Ayodhya, where a Ram temple is being built that would be used in an attempt to sway the majority community voters.

Modi is also scheduled to lay the foundation stone of a university named after a Jat king in Aligarh, in an attempt to mollify the community and also stress the Hindutva plank. The Jat community has been spearheading the farmers’ protest. The proposed university would be located in the same region as the Aligarh Muslim University, which faces repeated attacks from the saffron ecosystem. The BJP has been propagating how the Jat king Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh had formed an interim government of India from Afghanistan, another focus of the party to polarise with the rise of the Taliban.

Apart from Uttar Pradesh, the BJP also appointed poll in-charges for four other states — Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur.

Parliamentary affairs minister Pralhad Joshi was made in-charge of Uttarakhand with Bengal MP Locket Chatterjee as co-in-charge. Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat was tasked with Punjab.

Out of the five states, four are ruled by the BJP. The party is determined to retain all to neutralise the defeat in Bengal.