LUCKNOW: In the run-up to the UP Assembly elections due early next year, the ruling BJP party, following the two landslide victories in West Bengal and Assam, is gearing up for the next battle in line with effecting the long-pending expansion of Yogi Adityanath's cabinet.
The swearing-in ceremony, held at Jan Bhavan, witnessed former BJP state president Bhupendra Chaudhary and Samajwadi Party rebel MLA Manoj Pandey taking oath as cabinet ministers.
State ministers Ajit Pal Singh and Somendra Tomar were elevated to the position of Minister of State with independent charge.
The four others, including Krishna Paswan, Surendra Diler, Hansraj Vishwakarma, and Kailash Rajput, were sworn in as Ministers of State.
Sunday’s expansion marks the second such exercise of the Yogi 2.0 cabinet, as the first one was held in March 2024.
With a total strength of 403 members in the UP Assembly, the maximum size of the council of ministers can be 60.
So far, the Yogi cabinet has had only 54 members. However, with the second expansion, the UP cabinet now has 23 cabinet ministers, 16 Ministers of State (independent Charge), and 21 Ministers of State.
The political pundits view this expansion as an initial step to get into the poll mode while trying to strike a caste balance by reaching out to non-Yadav OBCs, Dalits and upper castes simultaneously to counter SP’s PDA (‘pichda,’ Dalit, ‘alpasankhyak’) narrative.
Among the six new inductees, three -- Bhupendra Chaudhary, Kailash Rajput and Hansraj Vishwakarma -- are OBC leaders, two–– Surendra Diler and Krishna Paswan–– are SC representatives, and Manoj Pandey is a Brahmin face.
While the induction of former UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhury, hailing from Moradabad, is being perceived as an effort to reach out to the Jat community in the politically crucial western UP, Manoj Pandey, an SP rebel, now unattached in the UP Assembly, is a three-time MLA from Unchahar assembly seat in Raebareli district.
Pandey, who hails from the Brahmin community, previously served as a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government and voted for the BJP candidate in the last Rajya Sabha elections.
Pandey’s induction is being seen as an attempt to quell the anger of allegedly sulking Brahmins over issues like UGC’s new rule and controversial questions using ‘Pundits’ as an option in multiple-choice question paper in police recruitment exam.
As per the sources, Manoj Pandy’s induction was the result of the feedback given by RSS to assuage the annoyance of Brahmins.
At present, there are seven Brahmin ministers in the Yogi cabinet, including Deputy CM Brajesh Pathak.
Similarly, the induction of Surendra Diler, party MLA from Khair in Aligarh district in Braj region, Krishna Paswan from Khaga in Fatehpur in central UP, is being seen as a message to the Dalit community.
The induction of Dilar and Paswan has taken the number of Dalit ministers to eight in the Yogi cabinet. The UP Assembly has a total of 86 reserved seats, of which 84 are represented by SC and two by ST.
Of the 84 SC seats, 67 are represented by BJP MLAs currently. As far as non-Yadav OBC representation in the Yogi cabinet is concerned, in all, there are 21 OBC ministers belonging to the BJP and the allies.
Of the 21, 10 -- seven of BJP and three of allies -- are cabinet ministers, five are Ministers of State (Independent Charge), and the remaining six are Ministers of State.
Among the promoted state ministers, Somendra Tomar previously held the position of minister of state for energy, while Ajit Pal Singh served as a state minister for science and technology.
Currently, the BJP has 257 MLAs, SP 102, Apna Dal 13, RLD 9, SBSP 6, Nishad Party 5, Jan-Satta Dal Loktantrik 2, Cong-2, and BSP- 1 in the 403-member assembly. Three rebel members from SP are unattached. Three seats -- Duddhi, Ghosi, and Faridpur-- remain vacant, waiting for a bypoll.