Gujarat cadre EX-IAS officer joins BJP in UP
Former Gujarat cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Arvind Kumar Sharma joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday at an event organised at the party’s state unit office amid speculation that a cabinet reshuffle in Uttar Pradesh was on the cards after the January 28 biennial election to 12 seats in the state legislative council.
Indicating a major role for the former bureaucrat in the state government, UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh said Sharma, as a bureaucrat, had worked closely with Prime Minthe
LUCKNOW:
ister Narendra Modi for nearly 20 years, and would now play an important innings in the state government and the party.
“I was working as secretary in the central government before taking voluntary retirement,” said Sharma, was the secretary in the medium small and micro enterprises ministry until he left
service on Monday. He was due to retire in July 2022.
Thanking the PM and BJP national president JP Nadda, he added at Thursday’s event: “I come from a backward village in Mau district of east UP. I have no political background. The BJP has honoured me. I will do the task entrusted by the party.”
A BJP leader who asked not to be named said that Sharma was on Friday likely to file his nomination for the legislative council elections. The MLCS will be elected by MLAS.
The BJP, which has 310 members in the 403-member house, is hoping to win 10 of the 12 seats with the support of its alliance partner Apna Dal (Sonelal) and some rebel Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress MLAS.
Apart from AK Sharma, the party has decided to field its state unit president Swatantra Dev Singh, deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, and senior leader Laxman Acharya as other candidates for the council seats. The names of the remaining six candidates will be released after an approval by the party’s central election committee.
Former head of the Political Science Department, Lucknow University, SK Dwivedi said, “In our democracy the government is being run in alliance with the politicians and bureaucrats... These bureaucrats are not loyal to the party but to the leader.”