The recent UP Cabinet expansion is an exercise to set right the caste equation perception
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently carried out a Cabinet expansion, the third, of his 54-month Government. Rather than administrative, it was political compulsion that forced the BJP Government to go for the expansion, particularly when the Assembly election is just five months away. It is a fact that before these Ministers can understand the working of their departments or get familiar with officials, the election notification would be issued. The expansion is seen as an attempt to balance the caste equation because the Yogi Government has been branded as anti-Dalit, anti-OBC and anti-Brahmin. Therefore, among the new faces in the Cabinet, three belong to Other Backward Castes (OBCs), two Dalits and one each are ST and Brahmin, respectively. With this expansion, the strength of the Council of Ministers in Uttar Pradesh goes up to 60. Yogi now has 24 Cabinet Ministers, nine Ministers of State (independent charge) and 27 Ministers of State. Of these, there are 27 upper castes, 23 OBCs, eight SCs, and one each from the Scheduled Tribes and Muslim. These Ministers now represent 41 of the 75 districts and offer a diverse caste bouquet. In the expansion, the Government has also taken great care of the regional equation with social engineering.
It is also an attempt to create homegrown leadership among the marginalised castes such as the most backward of the OBCs and Dalits. Take the case of Sanjay Nishad, of the NISHAD party, an ally of the BJP. Instead of making him a Minister, the party preferred to appoint Sangeeta Balwant Bind, a 41-year-old woman politician from the riverine community, as a Minister of State. This had happened earlier, too. In July, while appointing Apna Dal leader Anupriya Patel as a Minister of State in the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre, the BJP also appointed its own Lok Sabha MP from Maharajganj Pankaj Choudhary, who too is an OBC (Kurmi), as Union Minister. The search is on in the party to look for an alternative of Om Prakash Rajbhar, an estranged ally. The party has made Anil Rajbhar a Minister but he does not carry the same weight as Om Prakash. Apart from preferring its own leader in the UP Ministry, the BJP also appointed its lawmaker from Baheri, Bareilly, Chhattrapal Gangwar, a Kurmi (OBC). It’s being seen as an attempt to balance the exit of party veteran and Bareilly MP Santosh Gangwar, from the Union Government.