LUCKNOW: In the first expansion of Yogi cabinet since 2022 ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, four new ministers, including Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, BJP MLC Dara Singh Chauhan, RLD MLA from Purkazi Anil Kumar and BJP’s Sahibabad MLA Sunil Sharma, were administered the oath of office and secrecy here on Tuesday.
With this, the number of ministers in the Yogi government has risen to 57. The much-awaited expansion of Yogi cabinet came through as mutually agreed pre-conditions with allies like SBSP and RLD who have been inducted into NDA recently with an intent to firm up the position of the ruling alliance in UP, one of the most significant states of the country, when the Lok Sabha election is knocking at the door.
OP Rajbhar-led SBSP rejoined the NDA last year after quitting the alliance with Samajwadi Party with whom Rajbhar had contested the 2022 state assembly elections. OP Rajbhar has a commendable grip over Rajbhar community which is 12-22 per cent across two dozen seats of eastern UP.
Each constituency has 50,000 to 2.5 lakh voter of Rajbhar community. So is the case of BJP MLC Dara Singh Chauhan, who resigned from state assembly and SP in July, last year to re-join the BJP. During his previous stint with the ruling party, Chauhan had been UP Cabinet Minister for Forests, Environment and Animal Husbandry between 2017 and 2022.
He had resigned from the BJP in January 2022, before the state’s Assembly polls, alleging discrimination by the BJP government against the backward classes, Dalits and youths. He joined the SP and got elected as an MLA from Ghosi in 2022.
BJP fielded Dara Singh Chauhan in the bypoll of Ghosi necessitated due to his resignation but Chauhan lost the seat to SP’s Sudhakar Singh. However, the BJP sent Chauhan to Council.
Similarly, Anil Kumar, the three-time RLD MLA from Purqazi in Muzaffarnagar district belongs to scheduled caste. Believed to be close to RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, sources in the Jat party RLD claim that Anil Kumar’s induction in Yogi cabinet will shore up the prospects of NDA in western UP.
However, the surprise entry into the Yogi cabinet happens to be that of Sunil Sharma, the BJP MLA from Sahibabad assembly constituency in Ghaziabad. Sahibabad happens to be the biggest constituency in the state with over 10 lakh voters. Sharma, a third time MLA from Ghaziabad broke his own record to also defeat his nearest rival SP-RLD combine candidate Amarpal Sharma by record margin of over 2.6 lakh votes in 2022 assembly polls.
PM to visit Azamgarh
Considered to be the gateway to eastern UP with 10 assembly segments, Azamgarh is the upcoming destination of PM Narendra Modi who is likely to visit the Samajwadi Party (SP) bastion on Sunday, March 10. Apart from addressing a public meeting, Modi is also expected to inaugurate the Manduri airport in Azamgarh, part of Yogi 2.0’s regional connectivity scheme. He may also inaugurate the Maharaja Suheldev University in the district