PTI
 
LUCKNOW, Jan 25: Faced with a new challenge after the exit of party's backward class face Kalyan Singh, the state BJP leadership is busy chalking out an  alternative strategy to keep its support base intact ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The party which had boasted of good support among the Lodhs and Kurmis in the backward castes, thanks to the presence of Kalyan Singh (Lodh) and a good number of Kurmi leaders, is pressing upon its central leadership to woo back the influential cast leaders who had parted ways because of Kalyan Singh in the recent past.

Leaders such as Ram Bux Verma, Ganga Charan Rajput, Chatrapal Singh, Shiv Ganesh Lodhi Hitesh Kumari and Ram Singh who had quit BJP because of their differences with Kalyan Singh, will in all probability return to the party soon as Singh has resigned from the party.

Sources in the state unit said the damage control exercise has been launched on a war-footing with feelers to the influential backwards, specially Lodh leaders, to return to the party fold with promise of party tickets in the coming elections.

Sources said in the elections held after 1999 when Kalyan Singh had quit the party for the first time and floated his Rashtriya Kranti Party, the party had liberally allotted tickets to the Backwards as a result of which RKP could not take a foothold in electoral politics though the BJP too had suffered a dent in their fortunes.

The party plans to promote Raghuwar Dayal Verma a Lodha leader among others like its Kurmi faces Vinay Katiyar, Om Prakash Singh Ram Kumar Verma, Shiv Shankar Patel, Prem Lata Katiyar, sources said.

"A sulking Kalyan Singh within the party was doing more damage to the ranks than an open and vocal Kalyan Singh as now we are at freedom to refute his charges and strike back," sources said.

As per the records, his return in 2004 has not been of much advantage to the party. Of the nine Lodh dominated seats on which he distributed tickets in the last Lok Sabha polls only one, Bulandshahr was won by him and on the 44 seats in 2007 assembly elections only four fell in BJP lap.

The party is also planning to exploit the dissatisfaction among the Dalits and most backwards for whom the former BJP chief minister, Rajnath Singh had made a special law fixing their quota within the reserved quota.

The mahapanchayat of these sections had been organised in different places like Mau and Firozabad.