This is how Cabinet trim-down law works in UP: you trim post, don’t touch any perk

He is just one of the 26 ministers in UP who lost their jobs but not the status. Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had the tough task of dropping 29 members from a cabinet peopled mostly by MLAs who helped him form the government, found a way out: he offered a rehab package, the same status in different state corporations. All but three accepted.

After the mandatory downsizing, many chief ministers tried to accommodate rebelling ministers—Chattisgarh’s Raman Singh made two of the five dropped ministers chairmen of corporations and the rest parliamentary secretaries; Punjab’s Amarinder Singh accommodated two but Mulayam took the cake by finding jobs for all 29.

‘‘It was a constitutional obligation. But Mulayam Singh was considerate enough to maintain the status of all those who were dropped,’’ says Banshidhar Raj, chairman, Technical Education Board who was state minister for Transport. ‘‘If we keep getting his blessings, then there is no difference whether we are known as a state minister or chairman of a corporation. Our status remains the same.’’

When Mulayam asked his ministers to resign and offered them a complete package, he also issued an order saying the state government would bear the expenses of corporation chairmen. Earlier, the corporations used to bear the cost.

Matesh Chandra Sonkar, who was state minister for Khadi Gramodyog and now chairman, Seed Development Corporation, says, ‘‘It has not made any difference. I was availing the same facilities when I was a state minister. I have the same security (cover), same bungalow and the same number of cars.’’ The facilities have only become better. Those corporation heads who did not have plush offices were given the state ministers’ offices at the secretariat. ‘‘The Chief Minister has allotted state ministers’ offices at the secretariat to at least 20 corporation heads,’’ confirms Vinod Kumar Yadav. Only three rejected the offer. Kaushal Kishore, state minister for labour, was offered the chairmanship of UP Agro Corporation but turned it down. ‘‘I cannot sit on a donkey after getting down from a horse,’’ he says. Mahesh Trivedi, minister for stamp, court fee and entertainment tax, and Dinanath Bhaskar, minister for rural engineering, were offered chairmanships — of Gosewa Ayog and SC/ST Commission, respectively. They rejected the offers.