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Meet Sunil Bansal, the Chanakya in BJP's Uttar Pradesh poll victory

Bansal had junked any references to PM Modi's flagship demonetisation drive during the poll campaign

Sunil Bansal
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BJP leader Sunil Bansal. Photo: Wikipedia

Archis Mohan
Sunil Bansal has good reason to cheer the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) performance in Uttar Pradesh, where it was leading in 293 seats as at 11.40 am on Saturday.   

In June 2013, when the BJP announced Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi handpicked Amit Shah to focus on the 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh. In turn, Shah discovered Bansal, a former Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activist from Rajasthan, to be his eyes and ears in the state.

Shah and Bansal’s hard work yielded BJP, along with ally Apna Dal,