Adityanath shuffles ministry, inducts 18 new members

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath inducted 23 ministers, including 18 new faces, in his council of ministers in the first expansion of his ministry on Wednesday.

The strength of the council of ministers has now increased to 56, including the chief minister, against the permissible number of 61.

The 91st amendment to the Constitution limits the size of council of ministers at the Centre and in states to not more than 15 per cent of the members of the House.

Four ministers of state with independent charge were promoted as Cabinet ministers. They include Mahendra Singh, Suresh Rana, Bhupendra Singh Chowdhary and Anil Rajbhar.

Mahendra Singh, MLC since 2012, is credited with the huge success of Bharatiya Janata Party in Assam Assembly election in 2016.

Anil Rajbhar, is the MLA from Shivpur Assembly constituency in Chandauli district. His father Ramjeet Rajbhar was also BJP MLA from Dhanapur and Chiraigaon seats. He has been promoted to compensate for Om Prakash Rajbhar who was dismissed from the Yogi Adityanath cabinet in may last.

Suresh Rana, a strong Hindutva leader in western UP, is seen to have successfully run the state’s Sugarcane department.

Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary is a prominent Jat leader in western UP.

Two new faces, Ram Naresh Agnihotri and Kamal Rani Varun, joined as Cabinet ministers.

Ram Naresh Agnihotri MLA from Bhogaon in Mainpuri, has been rewarded with a berth in the Cabinet as he had breached the Samajwadi Party bastion in March 2017 UP Assembly elections.

Kamal Rani Varun, the MLA from Ghatampur reserved seat, has been a two-time MP of the BJP.

Kapil Dev Agarwal, Satish Dwivedi, Ashok Katariya, Sriram Chauhan and Ravindra Jaiswal have been inducted in the council of ministers as ministers of state with independent charge. Minister of state Neelkanth Tewari has been promoted as minister of state with independent charge.

Ashok Katariya, an MLC and native from Bijnor, a a grassroots leader who joined RSS in 1990 and later became an office-bearer of the BJP. He was elevated as general secretary of the party. His induction in the council of ministers is significant as the BJP is relatively weak in Bijnor and had lost the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat to the Bahujan Samaj Party in the 2919 Lok Sabha election.

Anil Sharma, Mahesh Gupta, Anand Swarup Shukla, Vijay Kashyap, Giriraj Singh Dharmesh, Lakhan Singh Rajput, Nilima Katiyar, Choudhury Uday Bhan Singh, Chandrika Prasad Upadhaya, Ramashanker Singh Patel and Ajit Singh Pal were inducted in the council of ministers as ministers of state are

The oath of office to the six Cabinet ministers, six ministers of state with independent charge and 11 ministers of state was administered by Governor |Anandiben Patel at a simple ceremony in Raj Bhawan in the presence of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, his Cabinet colleagues, Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit, BJP state president Swatantra Dev Singh and other dignitaries.

Ahead of the swearing-in ceremony, five Cabinet ministers — Rajesh Agarwal, Irrigation Minister Dharmpal Singh and Ministers of State Anupama Jaiswal and Archana Pandey — had tendered their resignations on Tuesday.

Swatantra Dev Singh, who was Minister of State for Transport, had put in his papers as he has been appointed president of the BJP’s UP unit.

After the oath ceremony, for the first time, the Governor and the Chief Minister separately felicitated the new ministers by offering them bouquet. Several ministers also touched the feet of the Chief Minister and the Governor.

The first ever expansion of the Yogi Adityanath Cabinet after completing half of its term is being seen as an attempt to further consolidate grass-root politics in the state ahead of 2022 Assembly polls. The names of Apna Dal (Sonelal) chief Anupriya Patel’s husband, Ashish Patel, and Rajnath Singh’s son and Noida MLA Panjak Singh, were, however, missing from the list of newly-sworn ministers.

Ahead of the expansion, the BJP and RSS had worked intensively to select the new ministers with the aim of giving adequate representation to all social groups.

Before Wednesday’s expansion, RSS and BJP leaders were closeted for several hours for a coordination meeting and finalised the list of ministers to be inducted. The new minister, enthused with their inclusion in the ministry, said they would work for the people as well as for the party.