Lucknow: The BJP has provided plum portfolios to the political turncoats in the Yogi 2.0 ministry but its grasroots workers, who served as ministers in the first term of the Yogi Adityanath government, and became legislators this time too, have been sidelined.
Jitin Prasada, who switched to the BJP from Congress just before the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, has been given Public Works Department (PWD). As soon as he joined the saffron party last year, he was given charge of Technical Education Department.
In Adityanth’s first term, the PWD department was given to then deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.
PWD is believed to be a very important portfolio. In the previous governments too, the department used to be with the second-in-command in the government. In the Samajwadi Party government, Shivpal Yadav had this portfolio. In the Bahujan Samaj Party government, the department was assigned to Nasimuddin Siddiqui.
Former Congress leader Rakesh Sachan, who joined the BJP just before the Assembly polls, and won Bhognipur seat in Kanpur Dehat has also found a place in the Yogi 2.0 ministry. Sachan began his political career with the SP. He was an SP MLA from Kanpur’s Ghatampur seat in 1993. He was re-elected in 2002.
SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s confidant Sachan won the Fatehpur parliamentary constituency in 2009 but lost from the same in 2014.
Denied ticket by the SP in 2019, Sachan joined Congress but lost the polls that time too. In 2022, Sachan won the polls on a BJP ticket and has been given charge of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, Khadi and Village industries, Sericulture, Handloom and Textile Industries ministries.
Former SP leader Nitin Agarwal, who joined the BJP and was made the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, has now been allocated Ministry of State for Excise and Prohibition (Independent charge).
Agrawal fought on a BSP ticket from Hardoi in 2008 and secured a win with 17,000 votes. He was an SP MLA in 2012 and 2017.
Dayashankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’ from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, despite being not a member of any House, has been made Minister of State in the Adityanath cabinet. The development has raised eyebrows in political circles.
Before the Assembly elections, he switched to the BJP from Congress and was made vice chairman of Purvanchal Development Board.
Vijay Laxmi Gautam, who fought the polls in 2017 from Salempur was made Minister of State after she joined the saffron fold.
Congress leader Dinesh Pratap Singh, who switched to the BJP, has also been made Minister of state by the UP government.
Cabinet Ministers in Adityanth’s first term who have been dropped this time are Srikant Sharma, Siddharth Nath Singh, Mahendra Singh, Neelkanth Tiwari, Ashutosh Tondon, Jai Pratap Singh, Ram Naresh Agnihotri and Ramapati Shastri.
Former Ministers of State — Mohsin Raza, Ashok Kataria, Atul Garg, Shriram Chauhan, Anil Sharma, Suresh Pasi, Chaudhary Udaybhan Singh, Ramashankar Singh Patel, Neelima Katiyar, Mahesh Gupta and G.S. Dharmesh have this time failed to make it to the Yogi 2.0.
(IANS)
