LUCKNOW: Halfway through the poll campaign, Amit Shah had fondly called Sunil Bansal, a big factor in the 2014 win, the “hero of 2017 battle”. A section of BJP leaders unhappy with him had been painting him as an arrogant man not ready to listen to others. Shah, no wonder had the eye to recognise Bansal’s capabilities. With BJP getting absolute majority, the backroom boy of the UP BJP, Sunil Bansal is at the forefront.Just before Lok Sabha election, the Rashtriya Swayemsewak Sangh had decided to send Bansal to Uttar Pradesh to assist Shah who was then UP in charge. It was the first time both met each other, Bansal had once told TOI. The six months he spent during Lok Sabha election in UP gave him the experience of politics in the state. “This is one state where politics is in the air,” he said, talking to TOI.Back in UP as organisation secretary, Bansal changed the social combination of the party. With Shah’s support, Bansal managed to appoint an additional 1,000 office-bearers from booth to state level from OBCs, MBCs and Dalit caste. Instead of replacing OBCs and Dalits with upper caste office-bearers, he added them to the existing strength.He then selected around 150 workers to look after the BJP organisations’ day-to-day functioning and ensured that 95% of his team comprised members of the state. “They were workers who had the zeal to work passionately for the party and were tech-savy too,” Bansal said.After UP BJP registered over 2 crore members, the party’s next task was to strengthen the booth. The BJP organisation secretary launched a drive of a sorts to form booth committees. Of the 1.47 lakh booths across the state, the BJP organisation managed to have effective committees on at least 1.08 lakh booths.BJP also had to work hard on shedding its tag of being an urban party. It was Bansal’s idea that the party contested panchayat elections. He faced resentment over the decision but with support of UP in charge Om Mathur and then UP BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpayi, BJP contested panchayat election and though it could win 327 seats, it remained runner-up in another 300-odd panchayats and lost in another over 300 panchayats by a meagre margin of around 100 votes. But ultimately, the party got over 1,000 rural leaders.BJP organisation wooed voters at micro level by organising youth, women and Dalit meets at vidhan sabha constituency level. Bansal ensured the party marked its presence on social media and facilitated monitoring of programmes being held througout the state on social media media. He directed his team to form various WhatsApp groups to ensure the progress of these programmes was updated.Bansal and his team meanwhile carried out a survey to ascertain possible candidates from each vidhan sabha constituency. Four different surveys were made about six months back, Bansal told TOI and added that candidates were selected after looking at the surveys.“We managed to ensure a social combination even in ticket distribution,” shared Bansal, amid receiving greetings from all and sundry at the party office.