Sanjay Joshi back to oversee UP BJP affairs

Barely four months after he was shown the door from Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party national secretary Sanjay Joshi is back to oversee the party's affairs in the country's most populous state.

Joshi's arrival in Lucknow on Sunday was sudden and unannounced. Yet there was a sizeable band of BJP workers in attendance at the Lucknow railway station when he arrived.

Significantly, he was invited as chief guest at a conference organised by Jagruk Matdata Manch (Enlightened Voters Front), an offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The meet was presided over by local BJP MP Lalji Tandon.

However, Joshi chose not to limit himself to the official agenda.

He began by first calling on Tandon at the latter's residence. 

Later in the day he visited the residence of state BJP general secretary Vindhyavasni Kumar to offer condolences over the demise of Kumar's close kin.

On Monday, he drove off to Rae Bareli to attend a similar conference organised by the BJP Mazdoor Sangh to create awareness among voters.

Joshi, who had steered clear of the UP party affairs after his tiff with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in 2011, had visited Aligarh and Kanpur recently, sending the message loud and clear that he was back in the reckoning in UP, where he was bound to be assigned a fresh role in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

UP BJP chief Laxmi Kant Bajpai was unavailable for comment on the possibility of an enhanced involvement of Joshi in UP affairs of the party.