Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik on Monday accepted Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s recommendation and dismissed Om Prakash Rajbhar from the post of Minister for Backward Class Welfare and Divyangjan Empowerment with immediate effect.
The Chief Minister had sent his recommendation to the Governor on Monday morning following which Ram Naik sacked Rajbhar from the Cabinet, sources in the Raj Bhawan said.
The portfolios held by the dismissed minister have temporarily been handed over to Minister of State Anil Rajbhar.
The decision to remove Rajbhar from the Cabinet was taken after the seventh and last phase of polls ended on Sunday.
The government also sacked six Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party leaders who had been appointed in public sector units as chairperson/member and were enjoying the status of minister of state.
“I have been punished for fighting for the rights of the backwards,” a disgruntled Rajbhar told reporters after he was removed from the Cabinet.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party could not dare to expel me from the Cabinet 20 days ago as elections were in progress and they waited for the polls to be over,” the former minister said.
He also questioned the grounds on which his demand for total prohibition was turned down by the government.
Om Prakash Rajbhar, president of Suheldeo Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), an ally of the BJP in UP, had rebelled against the ruling party and fielded 39 candidates of his party in the state. He also fielded his party candidate against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.
With the sacking of Rajbhar from the Cabinet, the BJP has snapped all ties with the SBSP, which has four MLAs in UP Assembly.
The sacked minister claimed that he had already resigned from the Yogi Adityanath Council of Ministers on April 13 but the Chief Minister had not accepted his resignation.
The SBSP chief welcomed the decision of the Chief Minister but hit back at the BJP government for “betraying the OBCs by delaying the implementation of the report on sub quota to the Most Backward Castes (MBCs) in the list of other backward classes.
“I welcome the decision of the Chief Minister. It’s a good decision. If the struggle for the rights of the disadvantaged and oppressed social groups in society is rebellion then I am a rebel and my struggle for the emancipation of the MBCs will continue,” Rajbhar said.
He added, “The Yogi Adityanath government formed a Social Justice Committee but dumped its report. I request the Chief Minister to implement the Social Justice Committee’s report as quickly as he took the decision to expel me from the Cabinet.”
Rajbhar said the BJP forced him to contest on the party symbol (lotus) from Ghosi Lok Sabha constituency “but the day I refused, I knew my fate as Cabinet minister has been sealed”.
The SBSP president said that his fight against the BJP would continue and though he was no more in the state Council of Ministers, his struggle for the cause of the most backwards would not die.
“How can the 27 per cent reservation given to the OBCs be grabbed by just 3-4 castes while others get nothing even when the backwards comprise 54 per cent of the population?” he asked, adding that the schoolchildren of the most backwards were denied scholarships.
The dispute between the BJP and the SBSP started the day it joined the government in March 2017. SBSP MLAs openly defied the BJP direction and voted against the party candidate in the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council polls
In March 2018. Rajbhar was unrelenting in his tirade against the BJP leaders and the Chief Minister. During the campaign for the Lok Sabha elections he had even asked his party cadre to beat the BJP leaders with shoes.
Rajbhar had also predicted that Narendra Modi would not be the next prime minister and that “Dalit Ki Beti” would be the next prime minister.
He had also extended support to candidates of Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance and Congress in constituencies where polling was held in the sixth and seventh phases of the Lok Sabha elections.