New Delhi, March 17: Union telecom minister Manoj Sinha, regarded as an able administrator, seems to have emerged the frontrunner for the post of Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

The BJP's newly elected MLAs will formally elect the chief minister in Lucknow on Saturday, with the swearing-in scheduled for Sunday.

Sinha, the 57-year-old Ghazipur MP, is an upper caste Bhumihar but will be seen as a "caste-neutral" politician in Uttar Pradesh, BJP sources argued.

They said the state has a small population of Bhumihars, who are anyway restricted to a single pocket in the east, so Sinha's elevation would not annoy the backward castes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah seem to have zeroed in on Sinha following extensive consultations with the MLAs and other senior politicians. Modi's firsthand experience of Sinha's administrative abilities at the Centre appears to have tilted the scales in his favour.

A three-time MP, Sinha was first made junior railway minister before being handed independent charge of the communications portfolio as a minister of state.

Sinha, however, tried to deflect the media attention today. "Neither am I in the race (for chief minister) nor do I know of any such race," he said while stepping out of Parliament.

He said he was travelling to his constituency but would be back in Parliament on Monday. Party sources suggested that Sinha perhaps preferred to lie low till he was formally elected leader of the legislative party.

State BJP president and backward caste politician Keshav Prasad Maurya, 48, too had emerged a strong contender. He may have lost out because of doubts over his ability to administer a large and complex state like Uttar Pradesh, party sources said.

They, however, added that Maurya's "contribution" to the election victory - he was a star campaigner and is believed to have rallied the non-Yadav backwards behind the BJP - would be acknowledged.

Given the non-Yadav backwards' role in the BJP's remarkable victory, the sources said, Modi and Shah would ensure that backward caste politicians get important portfolios in the state government.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh and Gorakhpur MP Yogi Adityanath too had been seen as contenders for the chief minister's chair, but the elevation of Trivendra Singh Rawat as chief minister of adjoining Uttarakhand put paid to their chances.

Rawat is an upper caste Thakur, and so are Rajnath and Adityanath. "You can't have a Thakur chief minister in both Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh," a BJP source said.

Rajnath's aides, however, claimed he was never in the running as he had made it clear he was not interested in returning to state politics.