Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has not allocated portfolios to his two cabinet ministers even a week after their taking oath.
Cabinet ministers Narad Rai and Kailash Singh Yadav are without any department for the past eight days while two other ministers Ram Murti Verma and Gayatri Prajapati were elevated from the state minister post. Verma, now Minister of State for Backward welfare, was elevated to the Cabinet and Prajapati, now Minister of State for Irrigation, was made the minister of state (Independent charge). The four ministers were administered the oath of office on July 18.
Yadav speaking to media persons on Thursday had tried to evade the issue by asking the reporters instead whether they had any suggestions on the matter. Officials had said the delay was due to the Chief Minister being away in Andhra Pradesh just after the oath ceremony and later they said Governor B l Joshi was out of station. The Governor returned to lucknow on July 23 but the government was yet to allot the departments so far.
Samajwadi Party sources, however, hinted that there could be some dispute among party leaders which led to the delay. Opposition parties BJP and Congress have criticized the Akhilesh Yadav government for taking the issue very casually. BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said such incident proved that there were more than one power centre in the Samajwadi Party government and Mr Yadav had no say in his government. Congress spokesperson Amarnath Agarwal too expressed his discontent on the issue. ''If allocation of department takes so long then how will the government work,'' he asked.