BJP to launch 'parivartan yatra' in UP next month

New Delhi: BJP will launch four 'parivartan yatra' next month in Uttar Pradesh and it will stretch over 100 days and conclude with a likely rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the party works to take on the might of ruling SP and Mayawati-led BSP in the poll-bound state. Party sources said the four yatras will start from Saharanpur, Lalitpur, Sonbhadra and either Gorakhpur or Balia and converge at one place, which could be Lucknow, after the inauspicious 'Shradh' period ends. Top party leaders, including president Amit Shah and several Union ministers, will be addressing public meetings as the yatras move on. Giving details of the campaign, they said the party has decided to hold a youth and woman meeting in each of the 91 districts of the state. It hopes to connect with each of the estimated 52,000 panchayats in the state and also hold a meeting at the booth level. Faced with tough competition from SP and BSP, both of which also led by formidable personalities, BJP is banking on its organisational machinery and its central leadership's might as the party is unlikely to name a chief ministerial face like its rivals. "Our developmental agenda, the good work of the Modi government and the mal-governance of SP and the previous Mayawati dispensation are at the centre of our campaign. So far the prevailing view is that we won't have a chief ministerial face," a party leader said. With a strong section of Dalits strongly behind Mayawati and numerically strong Yadavs and a large chunk of Muslims supporting SP, BJP is working to make a social coalition of upper castes and other backward castes to pull off a victory in a state where it has been out of power for over 14 years.