POLITICAL TURNCOATS LAND PLUM PORTFOLIOS IN YOGI 2.0

The BJP has provided plum portfolios to the political turncoats in the Yogi 2.0 ministry but its grassroots workers, who served as ministers in the first term of the Yogi Adityanath government, and became legislators this time too, have been sidelined. Jitin Prasada, who switched his loyalty to the BJP from the Congress just before the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, has been given Public Works Department. As soon as he joined the saffron party last year, he was given charge of the Technical Education Department.

In Yogi’s first term, the PWD department was given to then deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. PWD is believed to be an important portfolio. In the previous governments too, the department used to be with the secondin-command in government. In the Samajwadi Party government, Shivpal Yadav had this portfolio.

Former Congress leader Rakesh Sachan, who joined the BJP just before the Assembly poll, and won the Bhognipur seat in Kanpur Dehat has also found a place in the Yogi 2.0 ministry. Sachan began his political career with the SP. He was an SP MLA from Kanpur’s Ghatampur seat in 1993. He was reelected in 2002.

SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's confidant Sachan won the Fatehpur parliamentary constituency in 2009 but lost it in 2014. Former SP leader Nitin Agarwal, who joined the BJP and was made the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly, has now been allocated the Ministry of State for Excise and Prohibition (Independent charge).

Agrawal fought on a BSP ticket from Hardoi in 2008 and secured a win with 17,000 votes. He was the SP MLA in 2012 and 2017. Dayashankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’ from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, despite being not a member of any House, has been made Minister of State in the Adityanath cabinet. The development has raised eyebrows in political circles.