The Bharateeya Janata Party (BJP) leadership is said to be making severe efforts to delink Uttara Pradesh Assembly elections from the four other states, where elections are due before March 26. Though the Election Commission of India (ECI) was expected to release poll schedule last week itself, this was said to be the main reason for the delay.

Though the ECI is intended to conduct UP polls along with other states, political circles says technically it would be possible for the ruling party to postpone polls atleast by three months. It may be recalled that UP assembly was constituted on May 28, 2012, though Akhilesh Yadav had been sworn in as Chief Minister on March 15. This facilitates ECI to hold the polls in UP later.

BJP MPs from Uttara Pradesh have already briefed party chief Amit Shah polls cautioning that holding polls now would be disastrous to the party as people are pre-occupied with demonetization setbacks.

They felt that if polls are held after ensuring easy access to banks and ATMs would makes better for the party. They also of the view that it would be advantageous to the party to give some time for further deterioration of ongoing tussle among the family members of ruling Samajwadi Party.

However, polls to Punjab, Goa, Manipur and Uttarakhand Assemblies have to be held before the term of the respective assemblies expire on March 18, 2017 for Punjab, Manipur and Goa and March 26 for Uttarakhand.

It is heard that since last week ECI was pre-occupied in making arrangements to hold UP polls in different phases during February and March along with other states. That’s why it has ordered the UP Government to cancel the schedule of the Board examinations announced on December 9, intending to held exams between February 16 and March 20.