LUCKNOW: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday announced a list of 70 district presidents in Uttar Pradesh as part of its organizational restructuring ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections. The list includes 44 newly appointed leaders, while 26 have been given a second consecutive term.

The organizational restructuring comes ahead of the 2027 Assembly elections when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is expected to seek a third consecutive term.

The party has divided the state into 98 districts across six zones—West, Braj, Awadh, Kashi, Gorakhpur, and Kanpur-Bundelkhand. The remaining 28 district presidents are expected to be announced in the coming days.

According to the list, 39 of the newly appointed district presidents belong to the general category, 25 are from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), and six are from the Scheduled Caste communities. Five women have also been named as district presidents, an increase from the previous four.

Among the general category district presidents, 19 are Brahmins, 10 are Thakurs, three are Kayasthas, two are Bhumihars, four are Vaishyas, and one is Punjabi. The OBC appointees include one representative each from the Yadav, Badhai (Carpenter), Kashyap, Kushwaha, Pal, Rajbhar, Rastogi, and Saini communities. Additionally, five are Kurmis, two are Mauryas, four are Pichhda Vaishyas, and two are Lodhs. In the SC category, appointments include one each from the Dhobi, Katheria, and Kori communities, while three are from the Pasi community.

The five women appointed as district presidents are Renuka Sachan (Kanpur-Dehat), Nirmala Paswan (Prayagraj-Gangapar), Neetu Singh (Sant Kabir Nagar), Mamta Singh Rajput (Mainpuri), and Shilpi Gupta (Shahjahanpur). With this restructuring, the BJP has taken steps to expand leadership opportunities for women. The party has also followed its policy of ensuring that no district president serves more than two consecutive terms.

Mahendra Nath Pandey, the party’s state election in-charge, confirmed that caste representation was considered in the selection process. The party has set an age limit of 45 to 60 years for district presidents, though exceptions were made in Rae Bareli and Farrukhabad for Scheduled Caste and OBC candidates.

The announcement of BJP’s district presidents comes against the backdrop of the Samajwadi Party’s PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) strategy, which is believed to have played a role in reducing the BJP’s seat tally from 62 to 33 in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP’s organizational election process began in November 2024. In December, elections were held for 1,62,459 booth committees, followed by the selection of 1,918 mandal presidents. The entire process was monitored online by the party’s state general secretary (organization) Dharampal Singh and election in-charge Mahendra Nath Pandey from the BJP’s state headquarters in Lucknow.

Following the district-level appointments, the party is now expected to proceed with the selection of a new state president.