The decision of the BJP’s top leadership to stick with Pushkar Singh Dhami as chief minister of Uttarakhand has revived hopes of a similar treatment being accorded to Keshav Prasad Maurya, a known bete noire of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, say party leaders.

Dhami had lost the Assembly election as chief minister of Uttarakhand and Maurya as deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The defeat of Maurya, a powerful OBC face of the BJP in UP, had led to suppressed joy in the Adityanath camp, given the uneasy relations between the two leaders.

“The indication from Uttarakhand is clear that Keshav ji will be retained as deputy CM. He is a powerful OBC face and so the leadership may not like to send a wrong signal to his community in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” a BJP leader close to Maurya said.

The elevation or rejection of Maurya will throw light on the extent of authority Yogi wields after becoming the first chief minister in over three decades to return to power in the country’s most populous state after completing his term.

Yogi, after his emphatic victory, is being widely seen as second only to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the BJP.

“It’s no secret that Yogi and Maurya don’t share a cordial relation, so if the chief minister has his way then he would not like to have the OBC leader as his deputy,” one BJP leader said. “But if Maurya is retained as deputy chief minister, then it would show that the central leadership has asserted itself,” the leader said.

In the run-up to the polls, Maurya had kept talking about the return of a “BJP government” in the state, conspicuously avoiding mention of “Yogi Sarkar” or “Modi-Yogi Sarkar”, the thrust of the party’s poll drive. Even Modi had repeatedly hailed the “Yogi Sarkar” but not Maurya, who stuck with his “BJP Sarkar” theme.

Despite all this, party insiders believe that it would be difficult or politically unwise on the part of the leadership to ignore and annoy Maurya, given his deep association with the RSS and the BJP. He was the Uttar Pradesh chief in the last 2017 polls and the party had widely used his OBC identity to lure the non-Yadav backwards. After the victory, however, upper caste Thakur leader Yogi was chosen as chief minister.

The Yogi camp wants Maurya to be replaced with another credible OBC or Dalit face, sources said. They are pressing the name of present state party chief Swatantra Dev Singh, an OBC. Another possible name preferred by both Yogi and the central leadership is that of Babi Rani Maurya, a Dalit from the

same caste as BSP chief Mayawati. Party managers feel that her elevation as deputy chief minister could help the party dent the core vote base of the BSP, a party that has been pushed to the sidelines in this election.

There were two deputy chief ministers, Keshav Maurya (OBC) and Dinesh Sharma (Brahmin), in the outgoing Yogi government. While Sharma is likely to continue, the suspense over Maurya continues since he had lost the election.

Home minister Amit Shah has been made the observer for the legislature party meeting in Lucknow on March 24, where Yogi is scheduled to be elected as the chief minister again. At the same meet, there should be clarity over whether Maurya will continue or not.