Uttar Pradesh: While several UP BJP leaders are eagerly await- ing the expansion of the UP council of ministers, they will have to wait for now as top BJP leaders say that the expansion is only possible after the Budget session of the UP Assembly which is expected in February.
Several UP BJP leaders and some turncoats are amongst the hopefuls of a berth in the UP council of ministers which currently has 54 ministers. While the names of UP BJP leaders who are amongst the berth hopefuls include Pankaj Singh, Sadhvi Nirajan Jyoti, Akash Saxena, Ram Rattan Kushwaha, former Samajwadi Party leader and Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey who joined the BJP in May 2024 in presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah is also one of the berth hopefuls, sources say.
Last week, an unverified audio of Pandey’s son Pra- teek Raj went viral in which the latter was purportedly heard saying that his fa- ther was “about to become a minister within the next 10 days.” After the audio went viral, Pandey attended a public meeting in his Unchahar constituency after which he posted on his Facebook page that “the public gives a response to every conspir- acy and any right to judge rests only with the public in a democracy.”
Asked about the expan- sion of council of ministers, UP deputy CM Brajesh Pathak on Monday told TDG that any discussion about the same was only possible after the budget session. Sources in the UP government said that the bud- get session is only likely around mid-February or late-February which means that the expansion of the Yogi council of ministers is not likely to happen by March at least.
Speaking to TDG, a senior UP BJP leader said that while there are many hopefuls for a cabinet berth, the party will focus on inducting backward and Dalit faces in the Yogi council of ministers in a bid to send a message to the communi- ties ahead of the 2027 UP assembly polls which will also be a counter to the Samajwadi Party’s Pichchde, Dalit, Alpasankhayak(PDA) pitch.
The Samajwadi Party which won 37 seats in the Lok Sabha in the 2024 general election banking on the PDA pitch and shocked the BJP by emerging as the largest political party in UP. The SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has been continu- ously inducting backward and Dalit leaders in his party and had given tickets to as many as 28 OBCs and 14 Dalits in the Lok Sabha polls and had fielded Dalits on two general seats as well, namely, Ayodhya and Meerut.
This had ended up help- ing the SP win as many as 37 seats in the general elec- tion and the party is contin- uously trying to increase its presence within these com- munities. While the OBCs – which form about 40 per cent of UP’s population – had been voting for the BJP since the 2014 general election, the Dalits were known to side with the BSP or the BJP. The dynamics changed after the 2024 Lok Sabha poll when a major section of these communities voted for the SP.
According to a post-poll survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of De- veloping Societies (CSDS)- Lokniti which was pub- lished by a newspaper, the INDIA alliance that com- prised of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress – gained significantly in the Lok Sabha polls by winning 56 per cent of the non-Jatav Dalit vote along with about 25 per cent of votes of the Jatav Dalits. While the SP-Congress combine emerged as a gainer due to this shift, the Mayawati-led BSP was at a major loss.
Speaking to TDG, a senior UP BJP leader said that the BJP had started working on reversing the trend wit- nessed in the Lok Sabha polls immediately after the general election. “Meetings of the different morchas working for the backward and Dalit com- munities have been contin- uously held and the party has been undertaking work of strengthening its ground at the booth-level. The cad- re has been reenergized and the RSS too has been actively helping in preparing the ground.
The party is aiming to reverse the damage of the 2024 general elections,” the leader said. The leader added that the expansion of the Yogi coun- cil of ministers would also be the extension of the same effort. “Six berths are currently vacant and the party will attempt to induct backward and Dalit faces to send a message ahead of the state assembly polls,” the leader said.
TDG spoke to several berth hopefuls but most chose to speak anonymous- ly. “Only the top leadership of the party knows who will be inducted. There are sev- eral hopefuls but at the end of the day, the decision will lie with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Home Minister Amit Shah,” said one of the lead- ers whose name has been doing rounds for induction in the Yogi council of min- isters.