Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday visited the BJP headquarters in Delhi to express gratitude to behind-the-scene party workers, in what appeared to be a politically loaded move in the backdrop of an intense accusation campaign against UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath for "abandoning" the ground cadres.

BJP leaders said Modi interacted with the cadres "whose work rarely gets acknowledged". The otherwise publicity-hungry ruling party, however, did not put out any video of Modi's interactions with the workers.

"Modiji lauded the efforts made by the very ordinary workers like office and canteen staff and acknowledged their hard work," a party leader said. "Indirectly, he seemed to be underlining the importance of the party organisation and the hard work of the cadres in the formation of a BJP-led government for a third consecutive term," the leader added.

The timing of the visit, days after Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya asserted that the "party organisation was bigger than the government", led many to read obliquely that the PM was endorsing Maurya's remarks.

Modi's visit to express gratitude towards the party workers also came on a day when an internal report submitted by the BJP Uttar Pradesh unit to the central leadership detailing reasons for the party's loss of seats in the heartland state, was leaked in the media.

Among other reasons, the report blamed "high-handedness" of the Yogi administration as a major reason for the discontent among party workers. The other reasons like discontent among the youth because of frequent paper leaks and hiring contractual workers in government jobs, also appeared to be an indictment of the Yogi government.