New Delhi,
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today called on BJP president Amit Shah their first meeting after the party’s humiliating defeats in Kairana Lok Sabha and Noorpur Assembly constituencies.

They are believed to have discussed political situation in the state where regional parties have joined hands to challenge the BJP, the recent election outcomes that followed equally humiliating verdicts from Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha constituencies earlier and ways to make up for the losses.

Though there was no official comment regarding the meeting, sources said the party was considering ways to make up for the lost ground in the state that sends the biggest chunk of 80 MPs to the 545-member Lok Sabha. Winning 71 seats, it is from here the BJP made its biggest kill in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Shah recently said the BJP was working to gather 50 per cent vote share to weaken any united Opposition challenge.

Apparently, Yogi could go in for Cabinet expansion and induct MLAs from Dalit and most backward communities (MBCs) to woo the vote banks held by the BSP, SP and the Congress. Coming together of the regional parties with strong caste-based vote banks is one of the main reasons for the BJP’s defeats in the recent elections.

While the party has witnessed dissenting voices from within, including some MPs and MLAs, over the functioning of the Yogi-led government, state minister Om Prakash Rajbhar termed disenchantment of OBCs as one of key reasons for the BJP’s defeat. The Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party leader claimed backward classes were unhappy as BJP leader from the community Keshav Prasad Maurya was not made the Chief Minister.