Bahujan Samaj Party chief and former chief minister of UP, Mayawati, chaired an important meeting of party officials in Lucknow to gear them up for the coming civic body polls in the state.

The two-day meeting will conclude on Saturday.

The UP civic polls will be held for 17 municipal corporations, around 200 nagar palika parishads and about 450 nagar panchayats across the state.

On Friday, Mayawati held discussions with main zone incharges and on Saturday she will interact with district heads to formulate a strategy for the BSP.

The BSP was handed an ignominious defeat in the 2022 UP assembly elections and its tally has been reduced to just one in the assembly.

Since then, Mayawati has been constantly trying to strengthen the party and has already held several rounds of discussions with party leaders.

The BSP chief also assigned responsibility to the officials during the meeting on Friday, keeping an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The party aims at regaining lost ground in the civic polls so that it may benefit from it in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Meanwhile, the Congress has also started preparing a strategy for the civic elections despite being hamstrung by the absence of a full-time UP Congress Committee president. The party has been holding zone-wise meetings for this.

On its part, Aam Aadmi Party is also making preparations for the civic polls and it has appointed district presidents in 26 districts.

In the last civic elections, the BSP had won Meerut Aligarh municipal corporations, which surprised most political adversaries. On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party could not win any corporation and did not have any mayor in any major city.