Former IAS officer on BJP’s first list of four candidates

Former Gujarat cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Arvind Kumar Sharma was on Friday named on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first list of four candidates for the biennial elections to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council (Vidhan Parishad), the party announced. The elections for 12 seats of the Council will be held on January 28.

“The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party has approved the names of Swatantra Dev Singh, Dr Dinesh Sharma, Laxman Prasad Acharya and Arvind Kumar Sharma as candidates for the upcoming biennial election for the Legislative Council in UP,” read a release issued by the BJP, according to the news agency ANI. The announcement by the BJP’s central election committee comes only a day after AK Sharma joined the party following his voluntary retirement from service early this week.

State BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh, deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and the party’s state unit vice-president Laxaman Prasad Acharya are sitting members of the Legislative Council. Their terms, along with that of nine other members belonging to other political parties, is ending on January 30.

There is speculation in political circles that AK Sharma may be inducted in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet and be given a crucial portfolio. A major Cabinet reshuffle is on the cards in the state before the 2022 assembly elections, said people aware of the issue.

“Certainly, the party has some big plans for Sharma. It will be naïve to believe that he sought VRS from the country’s elite service, when he still had about two years to retire, just to become an MLC,” said a senior BJP leader who did not wish to be named.

UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh on Thursday had said AK Sharma would now play an important innings in the state government and the party.

AK Sharma, a 1988 batch ex-IAS officer, belongs to the Mau district of eastern Uttar Pradesh. As a bureaucrat, he had worked for nearly 20 years with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh had said on the occasion of AK Sharma joining the party.

“I was working as secretary in the central government before taking voluntary retirement,” Sharma had said on Thursday. He was the secretary in the MSME ministry until he left the service on Monday. He was due to retire in July 2022.

As per the notification issued by the Election Commission, the nominations for the biennial polls in which MLAs will cast their votes can be filed till January 18. The scrutiny of names will be done on January 19 and candidates can withdraw their name by January 21. The voting and counting will take place on January 28. In the 100-member UP Legislative Council, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has 55 MLCs, the BJP has 25, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) eight, Congress and Nirdaliye Samooh (Independents’ group) have two MLCs each and Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Shikshak Dal have one MLC each. There are three other independent MLCs and three seats are vacant.

A MAJOR CABINET RESHUFFLE IS ON THE CARDS IN THE STATE BEFORE THE 2022 ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS, SAID PEOPLE AWARE OF THE ISSUE.