Buzz over UP Cabinet rejig, Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya may get bigger role
Newly inducted ministers visit their constituents, say clueless about their ministry.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (right) had met Union Home Minister Amit Shah (left) in Delhi on Thursday. (Photo: Facebook/MYogiAdityanath) The suspense over the allocation of portfolios of the newly inducted ministers in the Uttar Pradesh Council of Ministers continued on Friday, a day after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president Nitin Nabin in Delhi.
Sources in the ruling BJP and its alliance partners said hectic parleys are underway over some of the most politically significant ministries in the government.
“The list (of portfolios) would come anytime soon. There has been a delay since there is a likelihood of changes in the portfolios of existing ministers as well. We are expecting some to get more powerful portfolios, while others may lose prominent portfolios. We are expecting that the reshuffle would define the power reshuffle before the Assembly elections next year,” a party leader said.
Sources said discussions are on over assigning more prominent responsibilities to Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, and at the same time, trimming the portfolios of some of the ministers currently handling multiple heavyweight departments.
At present, Maurya has Rural Development, Rural Engineering, Food Processing, Entertainment Tax, and Public Enterprises departments under him.
In the first Yogi Adityanath Cabinet – from 2017-2022 – Maurya, who was also then a Deputy CM, held the Public Works Department (PWD). In the second term, PWD has remained with the Chief Minister, who holds more than 35 portfolios, including Home, Personnel, Vigilance, Housing and Urban Planning, Revenue, Information, and Civil Aviation, among others.
In the portfolio reshuffle, party leaders said, the crucial PWD ministry might be given to either Maurya or Bhupendra Chaudhary, the former state BJP chief, who was sworn in along with six ministers on May 10.
The other ministries that may change hands are Power, currently held by Arvind Kumar Sharma; Panchayati Raj, currently held by alliance partner and SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar; and Jal Shakti, currently held by Swatantra Dev Singh.
“The importance of portfolios at this stage, when elections are so near, is symbolic as much as political. Whoever gets departments connected with public delivery will effectively become one of the visible faces of the government before the elections,” a senior BJP leader said.
Ministries linked directly to roads, electricity, water supply, and rural governance are being seen as politically crucial because of their visibility on the ground.
The recent expansion has increased the strength of the Adityanath government to 60 ministers, including 23 Cabinet ministers, 16 Ministers of State (Independent charge), and 21 Ministers of State.
Among the six newly inducted ministers, two – Bhupendra Chaudhary and Manoj Pandey – are of Cabinet rank, while four are Ministers of State – Ajeet Pal, Somendra Tomar, Krishna Paswan, and Surendra Diler. Two Ministers of State — Ajit Singh Pal, a two-term BJP MLA from Sikandara Seat in Kanpur Dehat, and Somendra Tomar, a Gujjar leader from Meerut — were elevated to MoS with Independent Charge.
Akhilesh slams CM for delay: ‘Will parchi come from top?’
The delay in portfolio allocation has triggered sharp reactions from the Opposition. In a post on X, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav mocked the BJP government, asking whether “slips of ministries” to be allocated to the new ministers would come from the “top”, referring to the BJP top brass.
“UP mein mantriyon ke naam ke baad, ab kya unke vibhagon ki ‘parchi’ bhi upar se aayegi? (After the announcement of ministers’ names in UP, will ‘slips’ deciding their departments also come from above now?),” Akhilesh post on X.
“The new ministers, who got their positions after a long wait, are merely sitting in the spectators’ gallery, watching the ball being tossed back and forth,” he said, alleging that the “double-engine government” was witnessing a tussle over ministries linked to “commission and earnings”.
Urging the people of Uttar Pradesh to keep a vigilant watch over whatever ministries and departments are allotted to the new ministers to ensure that they do not fill their pockets, the former CM said, “Now, the public will stop BJP members from looting their tax money. The corrupt BJP has already destroyed every department responsible for curbing corruption. The public now feels that justice can be obtained only through the medium of social media and citizen journalism.”
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