With Yogi Adityanath becoming the chief minister in 2017, the Thakur community has been overjoyed at what they call, ‘our share in power’…writes Amita Verma
After almost three decades, Thakurs in Uttar Pradesh have experienced caste pride with Yogi Adityanath taking over the reins of the BJP government.
The fact that Yogi Adityanath is also the head of Goraksh Peeth, which is a Kshatriya Peeth, has an added advantage.
Thakurs in Uttar Pradesh, despite being a powerful community that wields influence in urban and rural areas, has failed to find its voice in the corridors of power after the end of the Veer Bahadur Singh regime in 1988.
Though Rajnath Singh was the chief minister in 2000-2002 but he deliberately downplayed the caste angle in his tenure.
Thakurs constitute only 8 per cent of the state’s population but actually own around 50 per cent of the land. They are known to wear their identity on their sleeves.
With Yogi Adityanath becoming the chief minister in 2017, the Thakur community has been overjoyed at what they call, ‘our share in power’.
There is no denying the fact that officers belonging to the Thakur community have been given good postings even though it is Brahmins who continue to hold high posts like chief secretary.
The opposition has even accused the Yogi government of going overboard in protecting Thakur interests and shielding Thakur criminals but the chief minister remains unapologetic about it.
Yogi Adityanath, who is respectfully addressed as “Maharaj’ by most Thakurs, is seen as a custodian of Thakur rights.
“Thakurs have not got anything substantial in the BJP but our sense of self-respect and pride has been protected and that is what matters most. As for an increased representation in the government, this is only natural because the number of Thakur officers is higher compared to other castes and they have not been inducted in the Yogi regime,” said Thakur MLA of the BJP.
The MLA further said, “In any case, Thakurs have nowhere else to go except the BJP. The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party is keener on getting Brahmins into their fold and the Congress is preoccupied with its women campaign.”
Moreover, Akhilesh Yadav has managed to ruffle Thakur feathers and injure their pride when he made an uncalled-for remark during one of his election meetings in Pratapgarh.
Pratapgarh is the home of independent MLA and former minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya, who is now one of the tallest Thakur leaders in Uttar Pradesh. He has a royal lineage which adds to his stature and in state politics, he is known as an influencer who can make and break governments.
In Pratapgarh, Akhilesh was asked if he would ally with Raja Bhaiyya’s new party, Jansatta Dal, and the SP president responded with “Kaun Raja Bhaiyya?”
The remark evoked a sharp reaction among Thakurs-especially, since it was Raja Bhaiyya who had helped Mulayam Singh cobble up a majority by splitting the BSP and form government in 2003.
“How can he insult our leader like this? No Thakur is now going to vote for SP. Raja Bhaiyya had shown the courtesy of going over and wishing Mulayam Singh at his residence in November but the SP president’s behaviour is socially and politically incorrect,” said Kunwar Pratap Singh, a resident of Pratapgarh.
That Akhilesh is also not keen on Thakurs is evident from the fact that Thakur leaders in his own party remain side-lined.
The BSP, too, is not seen as pro-Thakur — especially after Mayawati had booked two Thakurs — Raja Bhaiyya and Dhananjay Singh under POTA in 2002.
The Congress, on the other hand, has almost no Thakur leadership left in the party and the focus in these elections is on women.
In this situation the BJP is bound to get majority Thakur votes in these elections and with Yogi Adityanath leading the campaign, his community is completely rallying behind him.
The Bhim Army chief and his party have no base in Gorakhpur or even eastern Uttar Pradesh. The Gorakhpur Sadar assembly seat has been with the BJP continuously since 1989, except once when it was won by Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, reports Asian Lite News
The first candidate to be declared against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur is Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad.
The Dalit leader had said earlier he would contest against Yogi Adityanath in the February-March election. Today, his party formally announced it, days after the BJP declared that Yogi Adityanath would contest the UP election from Gorakhpur Sadar.
Yogi Adityanath is running for MLA for the first time. But his main rival will be the Samajwadi Party candidate, not announced yet.
This will also be Chandrashekhar Azad’s first election.
The 34-year-old had famously backtracked after announcing in 2019 that he would contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He later explained that since he had no party at the time, it was best to support Mayawati’s party and the Congress.
Now that he has one, he would take on Yogi Adityanath, he had said.
“It is not important for me to win a place in the UP assembly. It is important for me that Yogi Adityanath should not get to be in the assembly. So I will contest wherever he is contesting,” he had said last year.
The Bhim Army chief and his party have no base in Gorakhpur or even eastern Uttar Pradesh. The Gorakhpur Sadar assembly seat has been with the BJP continuously since 1989, except once when it was won by Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha. In 2017, the BJP’s Radha Mohan Das Agarwal won the seat back by a margin of over 60,000 votes.
Chandrashekhar Azad recently declared that his party would not tie up with the Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav, after their seat share talks collapsed.
He declared that he felt cheated by the Samajwadi Party and that it had reneged on its promise to offer his party 25 seats to contest.
Akhilesh Yadav said he would try to ensure that two seats were set aside for Azad’s party but he was told the Bhim Army chief was no longer interested.
The Chandrashekhar Azad-led Bhim Army drew attention during the May 2017 clashes between Dalits and upper caste Thakurs in Saharanpur.
Chandrashekhar Azad was arrested after the clashes. Though he was granted bail by the Allahabad High Court, the Uttar Pradesh police arrested him under the stringent National Security Act (NSA). He was released in September 2018 after 16 months in jail.
On January 18, Azad who is a staunch BJP critic, said his political outfit – Azad Samaj Party – is open to stitching an alliance with others and maintained that his fight has always been with the ruling party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The seven-phases polling for the UP election will commence from February 10 and will continue till March 7. The Gorakhpur urban seat will go to vote in the sixth phase, on March 3.
Fearing polarisation on religious line, most political parties are also not talking about the Muslim factor, and the Muslims, themselves, prefer to remain low-key because they are aware that any ‘appeasement’ issue may actually prove detrimental to their interest, writes Amita Verma
Their silence, this time, is deafening and even unnerving. Muslim voters in Uttar Pradesh remain tight-lipped even as the political cauldron boils over with vote bank politics.
Talk to any Muslim on the street and the reply about the political prospects is non-committal and even ambiguous.
Fearing polarisation on religious line, most political parties are also not talking about the Muslim factor, and the Muslims, themselves, prefer to remain low-key because they are aware that any ‘appeasement’ issue may actually prove detrimental to their interest.
When Yogi Adityanath took over the reins of power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, he ruptured the perception that Muslims could make or mar a government in the state. He chose a broader Hindu mobilisation to relegate Muslims to the wings.
He pursued policies that did not serve Muslims, including a ban on cow slaughter and curbs on use of loudspeakers for ‘azaan’, to name a few.
The ban on triple talaq has angered the men who feel it is an intrusion into Sharia laws. The women, though happy, feel that the law has not served its purpose.
“How can we take on men on this issue without having financial independence. If we are dependent on the family for ourselves and our children, we cannot go against them,” said Shaheen, a young graduate.
‘Attacks’ on Muslims on issues like transporting meat increased, anti-CAA protests and the law on love jihad opened a gateway for ‘harassment’ of Muslim youth (in inter-faith relationships).
In short, Yogi Adityanath put the 20 per cent Muslims on the ‘defensive’ and proved that power could be attained and retained without the minority community.
His recent remark on “80 per cent versus 20 per cent” proves this.
“Muslims have been made to feel like second class citizens in the Yogi regime. He has branded the entire community under one label-anti-national-and it is this that hurts us. We have never opposed if anyone is punished for doing wrong but you cannot term the entire community as a wrong doer. In the past five years, everyone seems to have turned into right-wing police and all you need to bash up Muslims without getting booked is a saffron ‘gamcha’,” said a senior faculty member from the Shia Degree College in Lucknow.
The huge following that Yogi Adityanath has built up among Hindus, cutting across caste lines, has also made non-BJP parties cautious on the Muslim issue.
“We know that the BJP is waiting for us to utter a word on Muslims and they will then go all out to polarise the election on religious lines,” said a Congress spokesman.
According to sources, parties, this time, will not take the risk of fielding too many Muslims for this reason.
Muslims’ representation in Uttar Pradesh has historically fluctuated. The rise of socialist parties in the 1970s and 1980s and the decline of the Congress saw the first post-Independence rise in Muslims’ representation in the Vidhan Sabha, from 6.6 per cent in 1967 to 12 per cent in 1985.
The first rise of the BJP in the state in the late 1980s brought this percentage down to 5.5 per cent in 1991.
The overall participation of Muslims in elections as candidates also decreased over the same period.
The second phase of growth in representation started after 1991 and culminated in 2012, when Muslim candidates won 17 per cent of the assembly seats, achieving near-demographic proportion for the first time. The carving of Uttarakhand in 2000 also contributed to raising the percentage of Muslim’s representation in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP’s emphatic victory in 2017 reversed this trend back to the 1991 level — 23 Muslims were elected, against 68 in the previous polls.
This reflects the marginalisation of the community in policy-making.
“It’s not only about numbers, the slide in the community’s representation also means almost no role for it in policy-making, which does not augur well for almost one-fifth of the state’s population,” said Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali, member, All India Muslim Personal Law Board.
As the election process begins, Muslims in Uttar Pradesh do not want to make any ‘mistake’ that will lead to a division in their votes.
How the community will ensure that their votes are not divided, appears unclear to them also at this stage.
“Defeating the BJP is a major factor though other factors also matter such as the candidate, the party, village-level dynamics and local rivalries,” said a senior cleric of Darul Uloom Deoband, adding that “had all Muslims voted for one strong party, the BJP would not have come to power in 2017”.
“The Yogi government has targeted Muslims like never before. From Azam Khan to Mukhtar Ansari, the government shown unmatched zeal in bringing them down. Others with similar offences were not even touched with a barge pole in this regime,” said a Muslim MLA who requested anonymity.
Mohd Azam Khan may have been an unpopular figure due to his brusque behaviour but the 86 plus cases slapped on him by the Yogi government and the two years he has spent in jail, have ensured sympathy for him in his community.
Similarly, the action taken against mafia don and politician Mukhtar Ansari, who has a Robinhood image in the community, has also upset Muslims.
“In these five years, the government has repeatedly flashed images of his properties being bulldozed. If he had illegally acquired his properties, the government should have waited for the court to decide. The government has worked as illegally as, perhaps, Mukhtar did. He is a five term MLA – having won three elections from behind the bars,” said Abdul Ikhlaq, a high court lawyer.
The Muslim community has been banking on tactical voting. Most political observers believe the community will wait till the last moment before voting for the strongest candidate to defeat the BJP. Tactical voting could become even more pronounced in this election.
The presence of Asaddudin Owaisi’s AIMIM in the Assembly elections, however, does not seem to be a major factor in swaying Muslim votes since the majority in the minority feels that Owaisi is not in a position to challenge the BJP yet.
There are 143 seats in Uttar Pradesh, where there is an impact of Muslim voters.
There are about 70 seats where the Muslim population is between 20 to 30 per cent and 43 seats where the Muslim population is more than 30 per cent.
There are 36 seats in UP where Muslim candidates can win on their own whereas there are 107 assembly seats where Muslim voters can decide victory or defeat.
Rampur, Farrukhabad and Bijnor are the areas where Muslim population is around 40 per cent. Apart from this, there are many such seats in western Uttar Pradesh, Rohilkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh, where Muslim votes influence the election results.
At the same time, there are nine such seats in western Uttar Pradesh, where Muslim voters decide the fate of candidates by votes. In these nine seats, the number of Muslim voters is about 55 per cent.
These nine seats include Meerut Sadar, Rampur Sadar, Sambhal, Moradabad Rural and Kundarki, Amroha Nagar, Dhaulana, Behat of Saharanpur and Saharanpur Dehat.
Rampur has the highest 50.57 per cent Muslim population.
The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party won nearly half of the 57 Muslim-dominated seats in Uttar Pradesh during the 2012 Assembly elections.
In 2017, the BJP put up a dominating performance in constituencies with a sizeable Muslim population and clinched as many as 37 of these seats.
The Samajwadi Party’s share came down to just 17 while the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party failed to retain even a single seat in 2017.
The chief minister also took a jibe at the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying that he does not even know how to sit in a temple and knows nothing about ‘Hinduism or Hindutva’…reports Asian Lite News.
The BJP in Uttar Pradesh is scaling up its attack on the Congress and is policy of soft-Hindutva. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has termed the Congress leaders as ‘accidental Hindus’ while deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya has termed them as ‘electoral Hindus’.
“It is during the election that these leaders become a Hindu,” he said while addressing a meeting in Amethi on Monday.
The chief minister also took a jibe at the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying that he does not even know how to sit in a temple and knows nothing about ‘Hinduism or Hindutva’.
“During the elections in Gujarat, the former MP of Amethi went to the temple and sat there in namaz position, the priests interrupted him and taught him how to sit in a temple,” the chief minister pointed out.
He also targeted the Gandhis and said that they remember Amethi in the elections only.
“When the people of this district gave them a chance to serve, they did nothing and now as elections have come, they are coming here again,” he stated.
Launching a scathing attack on ‘bhai-behen’, the chief minister stated, “During the Covid-19 period, when we were working to save lives for the common man, the brother and sister gave fake numbers of roadways buses.”
“They were playing with the lives of people while we took action against them because they were creating disturbances in the work of the government,” he added.
During his recent Amethi visit, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had tried to distinguish between ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hindutva’, describing himself a ‘Hindu’ and the BJP leaders as followers of ‘Hindutvawadi’.
Meanwhile, deputy Chief Minister Keshav Maurya said those who fired bullets at ‘kar sevaks’ and used sticks on ‘kanwarias’ had suddenly started remembering Lord Ram. He asked people to be wary of such “electoral Hindus”.
On Samajwadi Party’s love for Brahmins, Maurya said, “Jo Ram ka na hua woh Parashuram ka kya hoga. (one who couldn’t be faithful to Ram, how would he be loyal to Parshuram)?”
He also accused the Congress as well as the Samajwadi Party (SP) leaders of remembering Hindus and temples only during elections.
“Yogi used the religion ladder to climb and rise big in politics,” Pradhan maintained – and retraced the history of the Gorakhnath mutt, of which he is the head, to buttress his contention…writes Vishnu Makhijani
The “unexpected” appointment of Yogi Adityanath as the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister in 2017 was met with “outrage and disappointment in most quarters, other than the staunch right-wing groups that hailed the move to no end”, writes veteran journalist Sharat Pradhan, a close observer of state politics for over four-and-a-half decades, who terms it a “unique case of a rabble-rouser suddenly being anointed” to the post.
Approached by Penguin to write Adityanath’s biography, Pradhan found it “interesting because Yogi on the UP Chief Minister’s chair was a huge surprise for all and sundry including the larger chunk of BJP leadership here (in Lucknow)… It was a unique case of a rabble-rouser suddenly being anointed as Chief Minister – specially without any RSS background or having ever held any key position in the BJP,” Pradhan told IANS in an interview of “Yogi Adityanath – Religion, Politics and Power, The Untold Story” that has been co-authored with Atul Chandra.
Pradhan, has been associated with several media outlets, including IANS, TOI, Reuters, Sunday, Outlook, BBC, and The Wire and appears on several news channels, YouTube and OTT platforms. Atul Chandra is a former Resident Editor of Times of India, Lucknow.
The book took off barely six months after Yogi donned the mantle in March 2017 but contrary to the original plan, took a little more than three years to complete – partly due to the extensive research and travel involved and partly due to certain extraneous personal reasons. “However, in the bargain, we were able to cover and scan almost the entire span of his term as CM,” Pradhan said. It’s a term that is “flooded with ads” in print and on TV as it winds down, with assembly elections due early next year.
“Yogi used the religion ladder to climb and rise big in politics,” Pradhan maintained – and retraced the history of the Gorakhnath mutt, of which he is the head, to buttress his contention.
“The founder of the Gorakhnath mutt was perhaps the most secular sage once has seen on this soil in centuries. He set up this institution in the 11th century essentially for the benefit of the downtrodden castes whose members had no access to temples of the Brahmanical order.
“Throwing open the gates of his temple to all and sundry also brought a considerable following of Muslims, who were called ‘jogis’. They used to sing Ram bhajans and also offer ‘namaz’. Some of their descendants happen to continue the old practice but not within the walls of the mutt premises anymore. We (the authors) met two such families miles away from Gorakhpur in a village, where very reluctantly they sang Ram bhajans for us. I have a video also. But they were very worried that this could land them into trouble.
“This is how this highly secular institution has been reduced to a home of rabid Hindutva. This trend began with Mahant Digvijay Nath, who was Yogi’s guru’s guru and held the mutt from the early (19) thirties to the fifties. And Yogi took it to the hilt,” Pradhan pointed out.
Has Adiyanath succeeded where others before him have failed on the development front? Would his achievements be what they are without Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s backing? After all, this backing – personified by hoardings, posters and print advertisements carrying his image with that of Modi – is with an eye on next year’s assembly polls, where it is clear that while the BJP will return to power but with far fewer seats than it has now (308 in a 403-member house). Where will this leave Adityanath?
Frankly speaking it is a misnomer that other leaders failed on the development front. And his ‘development’ has been described by his own machinery in hyperboles. I wonder if you have seen the three-page advertorial in the Time magazine. Indian papers and TV channels have been flooded with ads. The fact remains that his predecessor Akhilesh Yadav actually carried out a number of development tasks but he was weaker in spreading the word as compared to Yogi, who devoted a lot to publicity,” Pradhan said.
Adityanath, the author said, also succeeded in claiming credit for certain projects actually undertaken and completed under the previous Samajwadi Party regime. These included the 300-km Lucknow-Agra Expressway – UP’s first access control expressway built in a record time of 23 months with world class technology. “If you were to drive on that you would agree that it is definitely India’s best expressway,” Pradhan said.
The first eight-km stretch of the Lucknow Metro (UP’s first) was also completed and trial runs carried out successfully in September 2017; the work had begun in 2014. The Metro was initiated for Kanpur as well but the Union government held back its clearance that was given only after the Yogi government was installed.
“To give yet another example, an international cricket stadium was built under a PPP arrangement in Lucknow with a capacity of 50,000. The stadium was also renamed and the credit hogged by Yogi. Other innovative services like Women Helpline -1090 – Dial 100 were also initiated and implemented by Akhilesh Yadav. But Yogi chose to rechristen both. While Women Helpline was renamed as ‘Mission shakti’, Dial 100 was changed to 112 and described as Yogi’s creation. He also loves renaming mohallas and towns,” Pradhan said.
The value that Yogi could bring towards the beginning was “cleaner governance” and “improvement in the law and order situation” the author said, adding these too remained short-lived and as time went by, corruption took over and remained beyond Yogi’s control.
“Once again, a publicity blitzkrieg helped him build a somewhat half-truth perception that law and order was transformed under Yogi – even as heinous crimes like Unnao gangrape, Hathras gangrape and Lakhimpur killings went on, while the government left no stone unturned to defend the culprits. But for the intervention of the High Court and the Supreme Court, they would not have been brought to book,” Pradhan pointed out.
Conceding that Yogi too has undertaken multiple development works across the state, Pradhan said most of these are attributable to the Central government and the interest taken by Prime Minster Modi.
“Doubtlessly, many of these have been inaugurated hastily, essentially with the eye on the 2022 elections. Some of these are incomplete too.
“It is difficult to say whether BJP can repeat the 2017 performance in 2022. And there is a growing perception that if BJP returns with much fewer seats, the Modi-Shah duo could replace him in UP. Under such circumstances, Yogi could be accommodated in Delhi,” Pradhan concluded.
In the midst of this, Pradhan presents a rather startling proposition: Is Adityanath India’s next Prime Minister in the making?
“Was Adityanath appointed with Narendra Modi and Amit Shah’s concurrence or did RSS trump them to have a man of its choice in Uttar Pradesh? Yogi himself has said that the Shah-Modi combine was behind his political appointment,” Pradhan writes in the concluding chapter titled “Future Prime Minister?”
Noting that Modi had smooth sailing in the 2019 general elections, Pradhan writes in the book. “It is unlikely that the same pattern will follow in 2024. Questions could be raised within the party over his continuation in 2024 when Modi will be 74 years of age. On the other hand, Adityanath would be only 51, and with Modi himself having fixed a retirement age of 75 for BJP leaders, the monk could easily be considered among the frontrunners for the top job. Other prime ministerial hopefuls like Rajnath Singh will turn 73.”
“The only person who could upstage Yogi at the goalpost” is Amit Shah, as he is only 53 at present, Pradhan writes, adding that Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan “could form the second rung of aspirants for the PM’s post”.
You have yourself mentioned there are others waiting in the wings – Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari, to mention just two. If at all Aditynath is to become the PM – and this seems a pretty long shot as of now – it can happen only if he succeeds Modi. How realistic are the chances for this to happen?
It is true that Yogi has no RSS background. In fact on some occasions in the past he has been critical of the RSS. He raised the Hindu Yuva Vahini as some kind of a parallel to RSS… There is a world of a difference between him and Modi. But he is trying to ape him in many ways.
“Perhaps he believes that just as Modi was able to convert all his disadvantages into advantages – that includes the 2002 riots – he too would be able to use his rabid ways to push himself as the biggest Hindutva icon – and the fact that he wears the saffron also makes it easier for him to do so. But where he is unlikely to make much headway is casting himself in the Modi mould as a development man. You see all his advertisements are trying to project him as a ‘development oriented man’ that could enable him to showcase his UP model on the lines of the ‘Gujarat model.’ Besides, his arrogance is also not relished by a large chunk of BJP leaders,” Pradhan said.
So, why raise the question in the first place? “Because this had been suggested when Adityanath was made the Chief Minister, the question needed to be answered,” Pradhan added.
The Yogi Adityanath government has taken a firm stand against forcible and illegal religious conversions in the state…reports Asian Lite News.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi and Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawad have come out in support of Uttar Pradesh IAS officer Mohd Iftikharuddin, who is being invested on charges of religious conversions.
Owaisi alleged that the BJP government in the state was targeting Muslims for political mileage.
Owaisi said, “The UP government set up an SIT to ‘investigate’ a six-year-old video of a senior IAS officer. The video has been taken out of context and is from a time when this government was not in power. This is blatant and targeted harassment based on religion.”
Accusing the BJP government of double standards, he further said, “If the parameter is that no officer should be connected to religious activity, then prohibit use of all religious symbols/images in offices. If merely discussing faith at home is a crime, then punish all officers participating in public religious celebration.”
Well-known Shia cleric, Maulana Kalbe Jawad, has also come out to support the IAS officer.
He said, “Every person has the right to pray in his house. If this IAS officer offered prayers in a particular manner in his house, why should he be tried for it? SIT probe in every matter is not justified because everyone has the freedom of religion.”
The Yogi Adityanath government has taken a firm stand against forcible and illegal religious conversions in the state.
The UP ATS has arrested more than 14 people on charges of being involved in large-scale conversions across the country through their organisations.
During investigations, it was revealed that the people involved in this have been offering money for threatening innocents and luring them to convert to Islam, police sources have said.
Among those who were sworn in are one cabinet minister and six ministers of state….reports Asian Lite News
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday expanded his cabinet by inducting seven new ministers.
All the new ministers were administered oath of office and secrecy by Governor Anandiben Patel at a hurriedly convened ceremony at the Raj Bhavan, in the presence of the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues.
Among those who were sworn in are one cabinet minister and six ministers of state.
The much-awaited expansion comes barely months before the state is preparing for assembly elections in early 2022.
Through this expansion, the BJP has made it clear that it will focus on OBCs and SC/ST categories to ensure its return to power in next year’s assembly elections.
While Jitin Prasada, who has been sworn in as cabinet minister, is the lone Brahmin leader to get a place in Sunday’s expansion, the remaining six belong to OBC (three) and Scheduled Caste (two) and Scheduled Tribe (one).
The six ministers of state who were sworn in are — Sanjeev Gond (ST-Sonbhadra), Dharamvir Prajapati (OBC-Agra), Chhatrapal Gangwar (OBC-Bareilly), Sangita Balwant Bind (OBC-Ghazipur), Paltu Ram (SC- Balrampur) and Dinesh Khatik (SC-Meerut).
Apart from ensuring a caste balance, the party has also made sure to provide representation to all parts of the state.
A surprise omission in Sunday’s list is the name of Arvind Kumar Sharma, a former bureaucrat in the PMO who had taken voluntary retirement in January this year to join politics. He came to Lucknow and was immediately made member of the UP legislative council.
It was believed that he would soon be inducted into the ministry and given an important portfolio, however that did not happen.
There are 53 ministers in the UP cabinet at present, and seven more could be inducted as per the constitutional limit.
This is the third time the Yogi cabinet has been expanded since the Chief Minister was first sworn in on March 19, 2017.
As many as 23 new ministers were inducted into the cabinet on August 21, 2019.
The advertisement “Transforming Uttar Pradesh Under Yogi Adityanath” carried on Sunday in an English language publication has a cut-out of Mr Adityanath with a flyover that resembles Kolkata’s “Maa flyover..reports Asian Lite News.
In a major embarrassment, a full-page advertisement carried in a national English daily showcasing the industrialisation and development of Uttar Pradesh under UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanth featured a photograph of Kolkata’s Maa flyover. The advertisement drew sharp criticism from several top ministers and leaders of the Trinamool Congress accusing Adityanath of “stealing images from infrastructure scenes in Bengal”. The English daily, later, owned the responsibility of the fault.
“Transforming UP for @myogiadityanath means stealing images from infrastructure seen in Bengal under @MamataOfficial’s leadership and using them as his own! Looks like the ‘DOUBLE ENGINE MODEL’ has MISERABLY FAILED in BJP’s strongest state and now stands EXPOSED for all!,” TMC general secretary Abhishek Banerjee tweeted.
The tweet was immediately followed by Mukul Roy who has recently joined TMC from BJP. “Mr @narendramodi is so helpless to save his party that other than changing CMs, he has also had to resort to using pictures of growth & infrastructure seen under @MamataOfficial’s leadership, as his own,” Roy retweeted.
There were several others including State Transport Minister Firhad Hakim, Commerce and industry minister Partha Chatterjee and MP Mahua Moitra who joined the chorus. “Previously, BJP used photos from failures of law & order of their states to spread misinformation about West Bengal. Now they use photos of the flyover built under the leadership of #MamataBanerjee and under the chairmanship of KMDA to advertise for the ‘development’ in UP,” Hakim said.
“Thuggy Yogi in his UP ads with Kolkata’s MAA flyover, our JW Marriott & our iconic yellow taxis! Change your soul or at least your ad agency Gudduji!…. P.S. Looking forward to FIRs against me in Noida now,” Moitra wrote.
“When even Ajay Bisht can’t help himself but use pictures of #BengalModel for his own publicity… Slow claps!” Chatterjee tweeted.
The advertisement “Transforming Uttar Pradesh Under Yogi Adityanath” carried on Sunday in an English language publication has a cut-out of Mr Adityanath with a flyover that resembles Kolkata’s “Maa flyover” that connects the central part of the city with Salt Lake and Rajarhat located in the northeastern fringes of the city. The image also has Kolkata’s iconic yellow taxi and a high rise that resembles a five-star hotel in the city next to the Maa Flyover.
The English daily, however, later in the day ran a statement admitting that the fault lies with the marketing and advertorial team of the newspapers. The statement said, “A wrong image was inadvertently included in the cover collage of the advertorial on Uttar Pradesh produced by the marketing department of the newspaper. The error is deeply regretted and the image has been removed in all digital editions of the paper”.
Recent thumping victory of the saffron party in zila panchayat and blockhead elections has also established the political skills of chief minister Adityanath…reports Asian Lite News.
Words of appreciation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief J.P. Nadda have not only silenced the critics of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, but it also shows that he will be the choice of party leadership to lead in the next year’s assembly polls.
A senior party functionary of Uttar Pradesh told IANS that now all the doubts among cadres about the party’s face in next year’s assembly polls have been removed. “Recent moves of the party have shown that the central leadership have full faith in the Yogi Adityanath government and the BJP will contest the assembly polls under his leadership,” he said.
A party insider pointed out that removal of Santosh Gangwar from the union cabinet also cemented Adityanath’s position in the state even before the words of praise came from the Prime Minister and the party chief.
In May, then union labour minister Gangwar had written to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister pointing out mismanagement in handling of the second wave of Covid in his parliamentary constituency Bareilly. During a reshuffle in the union cabinet this month, Gangwar was dropped.
Recent thumping victory of the saffron party in zila panchayat and block head elections has also established the political skills of chief minister Adityanath. A senior party leader said, “Despite allegations by the opposition party of misuse of state machinery, one thing is clear that he (Adityanath) knows how to play the game. Results show that he knows all the tricks of politics.”
Words of Prime Minister and Nadda have given a boost to the Adityanath government which was facing criticism from the opposition and within the party over its handling of the second Covid wave.
A senior party functionary told IANS that back to back words of appreciation sent a strong message against the Adityanath detractors that they must get themselves ready to fight the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls under his leadership.
“Message is loud and clear that there is no change of guard in the state and Adityanath will be leading the elections under the leadership of Prime Minister and central leadership. He will be the face of the party in the state,” he said.
On July 14 during a visit to his parliamentary constituency Varanasi, Prime Minister Modi lauded the efforts of Adityanath’s government in managing the second wave of Covid. He said efforts made by the Uttar Pradesh government to tackle the coronavirus situation are commendable. The Prime Minister also appreciated the development oriented approach of the Adityanath government and ensuring rule of law in Uttar Pradesh.
On July 15, addressing Uttar Pradesh BJP state executive meet, Nadda lauded Adityanath’s style of governance and said he had turned Uttar Pradesh into a ‘leading state’. “While PM Modi had given a new direction to the country, Yogi Adityanath had put Uttar Pradesh on the path to development,” Nadda had said.
Amid speculation of his removal in June, union defence minister Rajnath Singh was the first one to appreciate the works of the Adityanath government.
A senior party leader said that Prime Minister Modi and Nadda have also silenced the chief minister’s criticism on the social engineering front by giving representation of different castes in organizational appointments made recently. “All the recent organizational appointments have taken all the factors of social engineering and given representation to all the caste and region,” he said.
The party has made it clear that it will bank on Hindutva, national pride, development for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls, reports Asian Lite News
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election machinery has kick-started poll preparations for 2022, when state Assemblies of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Gujarat will go to polls.
Party Chief JP Nadda and BJP’s general secretaries met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday to apprise him of the preparations. While elections are scheduled in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur during February – March next year. Gujarat Assembly polls is slated for 2022-end.
Sources said that Modi was apprised of the outcome of the discussion held on the upcoming Assembly polls preparations and the ongoing organisational works including ‘Sewa Hi Sangathan 2.0’.
“Main focus of the discussion with the Prime Minister was the Assembly polls, especially Uttar Pradesh,” they said.
BJP General Secretary Bhupender Yadav said, “We had a meeting with the national president. Poll-bound states were discussed in the meeting. Future programmes of the party are also discussed in the two-day meeting.”
It is also learnt that the results of the recently-held Assembly polls were also discussed in Nadda’s two-day meeting with the General Secretaries.
Sources added that the works done by the state units under ‘Sewa Hi Sangathan 2.0’ campaign, which was launched to provide help and relief to the people during the second wave of Covid pandemic, were also reviewed.
All eyes on UP
India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh will be the key focus for the party where Yogi Adityanath has been at the helm for the last five years. The party has made it clear that it will bank on Hindutva, national pride, development for the 2022 polls.
With the elections still more than six months away, the party will wait for the second Covid wave to subside and then gradually, but firmly, shift the focus back to the emotive issues such as the Ram Temple.
The Ram Temple in Ayodhya will be projected as one of the biggest achievements of the BJP and Yogi Adityanath’s proposed development plan for the city will also be showcased. BJP national General Secretary (organisation) B.L. Santosh and party Vice President Radha Mohan Singh, who were in Lucknow earlier this week, have stressed on cadre mobilisation and redressal of their complaints during meetings.
The two-day huddle of BJP’s top leaders began on Saturday when similar three-day confabulations of RSS top brass concluded in the national capital amid a buzz of plans for key organisational changes in Adityanath-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats including Varanasi from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an MP. The BJP has officially ruled out rumours of a change of guard in Uttar Pradesh, which arose amid criticism of the state government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and the talks of elevation of Gujarat cadre IAS officer-turned-UP-MLC Arvind Sharma as Deputy Chief Minister.
The party also plans a major programme to assuage the feelings of the cadre level workers who have been feeling alienated of late.
The BJP, according to sources, has no plans to give up the Hindutva card.
The party functionary said, “Yogi Adityanath has vibrantly put up the Hindutva factor during his regime. He has promoted development keeping in mind the religious factors, and has undoubtedly emerged as the torch-bearer of Hindutva. The party will capitalise on it.”
The BJP in Uttar Pradesh will further look to blunt the opposition by evoking ‘national pride’, which has been the hallmark of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre.
“There is development, Hindutva and national pride — a perfect mixture for resounding success in the next Assembly elections,” the BJP functionary said.
