Lucknow, Dec. 21 -- Newly appointed Uttar Pradesh BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary faces the challenge of building an organisational leadership team by rejigging the state executive, taking into consideration caste and regional factors as well as party workers' aspirations to fire the momentum for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, which will be preceded by the panchayat elections in 2026. The regional equations may need sharpened focus as both Chaudhary, who took charge on December 14, and chief minister Yogi Adityanath belong to the same part of eastern Uttar Pradesh. While Chaudhary, a prominent Other Backward Classes (OBC) leader, is a seven-term BJP MP from Maharajganj parliamentary constituency in Gorakhpur division, Gorakhpur is the religious and political home turf of chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Outlining his priorities on the day he took over, Chaudhary had said, "My motto will be organisation, contact, dialogue, and coordination. I will strengthen the organization and ensure that the party's ideology reaches the people." No reshuffle of the state executive can be done without taking into consideration the caste calculus to counter the Samajwadi Party's PDA (Pichhda, Dalits and Alpsankhyak) formulation. The present organisational structure of the state BJP comprises 18 vice-presidents, seven general secretaries, 16 state secretaries and one treasurer. Apart from this, six regional presidents and presidents of various organisations (morcha) of the party are also likely to be changed. The new structure of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP is expected to have more members from the OBC and Dalit communities. "The appointment of Pankaj Chaudhary is not without reason. In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the BJP lost its stronghold in eastern Uttar Pradesh to the Samajwadi Party. The maximum loss of seats for the BJP was from this region due to the shifting of a sizable section of OBC votes to the Samajwadi Party," said a senior BJP leader. The BJP's focus on the non-Yadav OBC vote bank stems from its four successive poll victories in Uttar Pradesh-2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha and 2017, 2022 assembly elections in which the party managed the most diverse representation minus Muslims. In these four elections, the party succeeded in keeping intact its caste umbrella, broadly non-Jatav Dalits, non-Yadav OBCs and upper castes. However, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the SP's PDA plank succeeded in bringing a large chunk of OBC and Dalits into its fold, dealing a blow to the BJP. The BJP's tally of seats in Uttar Pradesh came down to 33 in the last Lok Sabha election from 62 in 2019. Samajwadi Party shocked everyone by registering victory in 37 parliamentary constituencies. The most resounding defeat of the BJP was in the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency, the nerve centre of saffron politics revolving around the temple town of Ayodhya. In this non-reserved seat, Samajwadi Party's Dalit candidate Awadesh Pradesh, who belongs to the Pasi community, defeated BJP's two-time MP and veteran politician Lallu Singh, a Thakur. "The BJP never encourages caste politics. Recent victory of the party in the Bihar assembly polls has proved this. All appointments in the party are made on the basis of merit," said state BJP spokesperson Hero Bajpai....