In an apparent attempt at damage control following the recent communal carnage in Western UP, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday announced the state government’s intention to grant half a dozen ‘lal battis’(Minister of State status granted to ordinary persons) as well as to start a new pension scheme for those injured in the riots.
It was a Cabinet meeting chaired by the CM that gave the nod for the Laxmibai scheme for the injured. The scheme is the first of its kind in UP, in addition to the special compensation for the displaced sections.
Akhilesh also announced that there would be half a dozen new MoS in the state. Rafiq Ansari has been elevated as adviser on tourism; Kuldip Ujjawal in the Remote Sensing Application Centre; Mohammad Abbas in the Labour Department; Sarfaraz Khan in the Shram Nirman Agency and Subhash Yadav in the Rural Engineering Services are among the prominent names on the list.And all the new ‘lal battis’ hail from Muzaffarnagar and are expected to primarily work for the SP and improve the party’s prospects in their respective constituencies.
Ashish Yadav, who had been media in-charge of the party has been elevated as Officer on Special Duty(OSD) to the CM. The violence that ravaged Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring areas in August and September had claimed over 60 lives, mostly Muslims, and left scores wounded. Moreover, it had forced some 50,000 people to flee their homes.
The state government’s failure to rein in the rioters had provoked widespread outrage, which resulted in the Muslim organisations turning against the Akhilesh administration.
Following this, the SP top brass have been working out plans to woo the minority back into the party fold. And the issue had attained considerable urgency for the SP since Muslims constitute a major chunk of the party’s supporters.
Although the SP Government had announced compensation of `90 crore to the riots victims who were forced to flee,the party leadership had come to the conclusion that much more needed to be done to assuage the hurt of the Muslim electorate so as to ensure their votes in the forthcoming LS polls.
Already, the SP had set a record of sorts by conferring ‘VIP’ status on nearly 100 people, all of them party loyalists. However,several of the ‘VIPs’ turned out to be a liability for the government resulting in half a dozen of them getting sacked. Moreover, the new ‘VIPs’ are causing financial burden to the various state corporations and boards since most of them are already in the red.