Smriti Irani gets key party role: Why BJP has turned to its ‘giant killer’ before UP elections | India News
NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday unveiled a new national team under Nitin Nabin, and one of the biggest takeaways was the return of former Union minister Smriti Irani. Over a year after making a comeback on television as the nation’s favourite ‘bahu’, the actress-cum-politician is now back in BJP’s core team as a national general secretary.Once one of the most prominent faces in Narendra Modi’s cabinet, she had remained outside the party’s central organisational structure after being dropped from the cabinet. This was after she lost the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Amethi.The BJP’s decision to bring the former Union minister back is being seen as far more than a routine reshuffle. By appointing her as a national general secretary alongside seasoned strategists such as Sunil Bansal, Vinod Tawde, Biplab Deb and Satish Poonia, the party has signalled that it is shifting into election mode.And at the centre of that strategy is one state: Uttar Pradesh.
Smriti Irani is back in the BJP’s war room, and UP is once again at centre of her journey.
The Uttar Pradesh assembly election, expected in early 2027, will be BJP’s biggest political test after the setbacks it suffered in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The opposition INDIA bloc had outperformed expectations by winning 43 of the 80 seats. The ruling NDA secured 36 seats, with BJP winning 33 seats.With the rejig, BJP is going all-out in the poll-bound state and Smriti Irani is now all set to play an important role.Irani’s political identity is inseparable from Uttar Pradesh.Her biggest political achievement came in 2019, when she defeated then Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Amethi in Lok Sabha elections, ending the Gandhi family’s decades-long dominance over the constituency.The numbers told the story. Smriti Irani secured 4,68,514 votes against Rahul Gandhi’s 4,13,394, winning by 55,120 votes. Rahul Gandhi had represented Amethi since 2004. The result led to Smriti Irani becoming one of BJP’s most celebrated leaders and earned her the reputation of a “giant killer.”But her association with Amethi had begun much earlier.She first contested the seat in 2014, when BJP was expanding aggressively across Uttar Pradesh under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. Although she lost that election, she continued to work in the constituency over the next five years, repeatedly visiting villages, strengthening BJP’s local structure and cultivating a network of party workers.That long-term investment eventually paid off in 2019.However, she lost her seat in 2024 to Congress candidate Kishori Lal Sharma by more than 1.67 lakh votes.On the ground, she remains one of BJP’s most recognisable leaders in Uttar Pradesh.As a national general secretary, Irani will be involved in coordinating with state units, selecting candidates, resolving factional disputes and supervising booth-level mobilisation.The combination of Irani, Sunil Bansal, Vinod Tawde and Satish Poonia offers clues about the party’s thinking.Bansal is widely credited with helping build the BJP’s formidable electoral machine in Uttar Pradesh. During his tenure as the party’s state general secretary (organisation), BJP developed a highly decentralised structure based on booth committees, beneficiary outreach and data-driven campaigning. Tawde and Poonia bring years of experience in managing state units and organisational affairs.Smriti Irani fills a different role.Unlike many organisational leaders who operate behind the scenes, she is a high-visibility political campaigner. That could become particularly important in Uttar Pradesh, where electoral contests are often influenced as much by messaging as by caste arithmetic.Another factor behind Smriti Irani’s return may be the BJP’s increasing focus on women voters.Over the past decade, women have emerged as one of the party’s most reliable electoral constituencies. Welfare schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Jal Jeevan Mission and various direct-benefit programmes have helped BJP build a large base of female beneficiaries.
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Smriti Irani’s political and administrative background fits neatly into that strategy.As a former Union minister for women and child development and a former BJP Mahila Morcha president, she brings both administrative experience and organisational credibility.There is another symbolic layer to her appointment.The Congress has been attempting to revive its organisation in Uttar Pradesh under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership. By restoring to prominence the woman who handed Gandhi one of the most significant defeats of his political career, BJP has revived one of its most potent political narratives.Whether Smriti Irani’s comeback translates into electoral gains for the BJP remains to be seen. However, her recent promotion makes one thing clear: the party believes the woman who once dethroned Rahul Gandhi still has unfinished business in Uttar Pradesh.
