Shatrughan Sinha (top) and Syed Shahnawaz Hussain. Telegraph pictures

Patna, Jan. 23: Forty BJP leaders from the state, including Patna Sahib MP Shatrughan Sinha and Bhagalpur MP Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, figure in the list prepared by the party high command for campaigning in Uttar Pradesh.

The party’s Motihari MP, Radhamohan Singh, nominated as the associate in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, has started campaigning in the election-bound state. Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and the party’s national spokesperson, Ravi Shankar Prasad, sources revealed, would soon begin electioneering in UP.

Insiders said the party high command decided to draft in a large number of BJP leaders from Bihar for the UP polls for two reasons — to engage the warring leaders of the party’s Bihar unit in a common purpose and for their familiarity with the social, cultural and political lingo in the neighbouring state.

The differences within the BJP in the state have come out in the open on a number of occasions. Shatrughan, despite representing Patna Sahib in the Lok Sabha, has seldom been treated as an “insider” in the NDA’s scheme of things. The BJP in Bihar is, primarily, in control of Modi. The deputy chief minister is believed not having a cordial rapport with Shatrughan.

Being a Kayastha, Rajya Sabha MP Ravi Shankar Prasad looks himself as a probable claimant to the party ticket on the Patna Sahib Lok Sabha seat, an ambition that has not gone down well with Shatrughan — another Kayastha.

Shatrughan has complained in public on numerous occasions that the state unit of the party had been ignoring him. He is right to an extent because the party did not invite him to the Vir Kuer Singh Vijay Utsav celebrations in April last year despite the Bollywood actor being present at a hotel here. Shatrughan had openly vented his ire on the issue.

Against this backdrop, the party strategists believe that fighting for the betterment of the party at an “alien” turf, where the leaders from the state have no personal stakes involved might inculcate among them a sense of coherence and unity.