Union Minister Pankaj Chaudhary is set to be elected unopposed as the new Uttar Pradesh BJP president, with no other candidates filing nominations. The official announcement will be made by central leaders in Lucknow at 2 PM today. This appointment is viewed as a strategic move to consolidate the OBC vote bank ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
Uttar Pradesh BJP will get its new state president on December 14, 2025. Union Minister of State for Finance and seven-time MP from Maharajganj, Pankaj Chaudhary, is set for an unopposed election. The nomination deadline ended at 3 PM on Saturday, with no other leaders filing papers.
At 2 PM today, BJP national organizational general secretary Vinod Tawde and Union Minister Piyush Goyal will formally announce Chaudhary's name at the party office in Lucknow. During nomination, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was his proposer, joined by Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, former Union Minister Smriti Irani, ministers Suresh Khanna, Swatantra Dev Singh, Surya Pratap Shahi, and Baby Rani Maurya. Vinod Tawde and Mahendra Nath Pandey accepted the nomination as election officers.
In an interview with Aaj Tak, Pankaj Chaudhary said, 'The party's top leadership asked me to file the nomination, after which I submitted the form. Whatever responsibility the party gives me, I will fulfill it with complete dedication.' He belongs to the Kurmi community, a key OBC group in Uttar Pradesh accounting for about 8 percent of the population.
This appointment is part of BJP's strategy ahead of the 2027 assembly elections, aiming to counter the Samajwadi Party's PDA (backward, Dalit, minority) campaign by uniting non-Yadav OBCs. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP won 33 seats, down from 62 in 2019, while SP secured 37. In the 2022 assembly elections, BJP's seats fell from 312 to 255, with SP rising from 47 to 111.
Chaudhary faces challenges including coordination between the party organization and Yogi Adityanath's government, balancing eastern and western UP dynamics—replacing a western UP Jat leader while hailing from Gorakhpur—and keeping workers united for the 2026 panchayat polls. His organizational experience is limited, though his parliamentary career spans 35 years.
