New Delhi, June 9: The BJP has frowned upon attempts to project three party MPs as chief ministerial candidates for the Uttar Pradesh elections, due next year.

The party has made it clear that if and when a candidate for chief minister is named, it would be someone with the "political heft", "gravitas" and "charisma" to match Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati, the leaders of the Samajwadi Party and the BSP.

Posters depicting the three MPs - Smriti Irani, Varun Gandhi and Yogi Adityanath - have been periodically spotted in Uttar Pradesh.

Recently, a poster put up in Allahabad - the venue of the BJP's national executive meet that begins on June 11 - juxtaposed Smriti and Varun with a punch line that was uncomplimentary to the HRD minister.

It said: "Smriti Irani huyee bimar, Uttar Pradesh ki yehee pukaar, Varun Gandhi ab ki baar (Smriti Irani has become unfit, Uttar Pradesh's call is, this time it will be Varun Gandhi).

"Obviously, the supporters of these three persons are projecting their leaders through such posters. The party has not had a single debate on the issue," a senior BJP leader said.

Asked if the poster promotion would be contained, the leader smiled and said nothing.

He explained why Assam - where the BJP had announced Sarbananda Sonowal as its choice for chief minister four months before the polls - and Uttar Pradesh were different.

"First, here we are up against Mulayam Singh and Mayawati. So we need an individual with political gravity and charisma to match them. Second, Sonowal was an easy choice because he has a clean image and... his appeal cut across ethnic lines.... Uttar Pradesh is highly complex. Various factors will have to be considered before a decision is taken."

Remarkably, the leader singled out Mulayam and not his son - chief minister Akhilesh Yadav - as the Samajwadi's face.

Asked if seniority, experience and a pan-Uttar Pradesh appeal could see Union home minister Rajnath Singh being projected as a possible candidate, the leader said: "His supporters too want to see him as the CM, I guess."

A source close to Rajnath, a former chief minister, said there had been "no direct or indirect signal to him from the top brass" yet.

Rajnath, who had helmed the state election in 2002 as chief minister, failed to deliver a win.

Indications are while he may not be declared as the chief minister candidate, he could be placed as the "third angle" of a triangle consisting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah.

The Uttar Pradesh BJP has been directed to put up posters of the trio during the Allahabad meet.

Varun, the Sultanpur MP, denied being on an overdrive to bolster his prospects. "If I went to 20 districts, there was no political or party programme to mark my visits. I went to give cheques to distressed farmers and the families of farmers who had committed suicide," he said.

Adityanath could not be accessed. An aide who answered his landline in Gorakhpur said: "How can he be blamed if his cheerleaders put up posters?"