NEW DELHI: Having being sidelined for over a decade now, veteran BJP leader Vinay Katiyar is eyeing a political comeback from the contentious Ayodhya assembly seat in the 2027 UP state polls. Despite being one of the pillars of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and a founding president of the Bajrang Dal—the organisation that was formed to provide an aggressive push to the movement that culminated into the demolition of the Babri masjid and a prolonged legal struggle for construction of a Hindu temple in place of the same.
Katiyar went into political sanyas around 2010. Katiyar who has served as a Lok Sabha MP thrice and a Rajya Sabha MP twice had started his journey as a member of the ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, served as the organising secretary of ABVP’s Uttar Pradesh state unit from 1970 to 1974 and was also the convener of the Bihar movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan in 1974. He also served as the UP BJP chief between 2002-2004 and the national general secretary of the BJP from 2006 onwards, but gradually shifted out of public view.
Speaking to media persons in Ayodhya on January 6, he announced that he would contest the 2027 election from Ayodhya which has been his “karmabhoomi”. Since then, Katiyar’s residences in Lucknow and Ayodhya have been buzzing with activity as he has begun holding meetings with local BJP leaders and supporters there. Katiyar has also been making statements about the upcoming elections, the prospects of the Samajwadi Party which had upstaged the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and his role in Ayodhya’s politics.
But what has sparked a buzz about Katiyar’s return to active politics is his recent meetings with newly-elected UP BJP state president Pankaj Chaudhary and current national vice president of the BJP Laxmikant Bajpai who has also served as the UP BJP state head in the past. While Choudhary is a Kurmi—the same community to which Katiyar belongs—the new UP BJP state president has worked closely with Katiyar in the 1990s and the early 2000s (a period which coincided with Katiyar’s stint as the UP BJP chief). The closed-door meeting held between Katiyar and Choudhary went on for about two hours.
Subsequently, Katiyar met Bajpai who had arrived at his Ayodhya residence on January 6 and within hours of the meeting he declared that he will fight the polls from Ayodhya assembly seat. While a section of UP BJP leaders say that Katiyar’s announcement stems from his own desire to make a political comeback, another section feels that his meetings with Choudhary and Bajpai may be the new UP BJP chief’s strategy to boost the party’s Kurmi vote base as the community forms a sizeable voter chunk in the Ayodhya assembly seat.
“Vinay Katiyar is a vocal leader and had been forced into political retirement about over a decade back. However, he always harboured a desire to continue to be in active politics and with Choudhary and Bajpai meeting him, he may have got a chance to reassert himself and brand himself as a possible contender for the Ayodhya seat. However, a final call on the seat distribution is taken by the central leadership of the BJP and there is still time in the 2027 polls. While Katiyar’s association with the new UP BJP chief may be helping his prospects, the UP BJP state president’s role in candidate selection is limited to submission of the top three contenders for an assembly seat. The final decision is taken by the central leadership,” a senior UP BJP leader told TSG.
The leader said that Choudhary and Bajpai’s meetings with Katiyar may be limited to sending a message to him to re-energise the Kurmi voters to boost the party’s prospects ahead of the 2027 state assembly polls given the Samajwadi Party’s PDA (Pichchde, Dalit, Alpsankhayak) pitch. The SP had delivered a major political shock to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls when it won 37 seats and emerged as the largest political party in UP—but the most difficult pill to swallow for the BJP was the defeat of its candidate Lallu Singh at the hands of SP’s Dalit candidate Awadhesh Prasad.
“The party may be looking at giving a push to Vinay Katiyar and other Kurmi leaders to send a message amongst the Kurmi community which forms a sizeable vote bank in the Ayodhya assembly seat,” another UP BJP leader said. When asked about his meetings with Choudhary and Bajpai, Katiyar told the TSG that such meetings were natural and added that meetings with the party cadre will continue in the future too. Asked if the party will take an aggressive campaigning style which is in consonance with his own, Katiyar said that while he would not make a lot of noise at present, he would do so when the time comes. “I am normal these days. I am not making any noise but will do so when I have to,” he told TSG.
UP BJP sources said that at present, there are three main contenders for the contentious Ayodhya assembly seat which include current BJP MLA Ved Prakash Gupta, former Ayodhya MP Lallu Singh who is looking to pass on his political legacy to his elder son Vikas Singh, and Vinay Katiyar. “Vinay Katiyar’s claim to the Ayodhya assembly seat may find takers if the BJP plans to send a message to the Kurmis which form 7.4 per cent of UP’s total population and form a major chunk of the state’s OBC population.
According to the 2001 report of Hukam Singh Committee, the Kurmi/Patel population constitutes around 7.4 per cent of the state’s total population which means that they form the biggest OBC group after the Yadavs in the state which have over 19 per cent share in UP’s population. As of now, out of the total there are 40 Kurmi MLAs in the UP assembly out of whom 27 belong to the BJP, 12 to the SP and one belongs to the Congress. Of the 80 Lok Sabha MPs from UP, 11 MPs are from the Kurmi caste of which the SP has seven MPs, BJP has three MPs and the Anupriya Patel-led Apna Dal (S) has one Kurmi MP.
