Jubilee Post News & Views
Jubilee News Desk
Months before the assembly polls in 2022, the Uttar Pradesh cabinet expansion took place on Sunday and 7 more minister were added to the existing list of 53.
A swearing-in ceremony hwas scheduled at the Gandhi auditorium in Raj Bhavan, but even minutes before official ceremony officials were tight-lipped on the number or the names of ministers who will be inducted into the cabinet.
Brahmin leader Jitin Prasada, who switched over to the BJP from the Congress, took oath as a minister in the Uttar Pradesh Government, at the ceremony. Prasada who joined the BJP from Congress in June this year was the first to take the oath as minister.
Chhatarpal Gangwar MLA from Bahedi in Bareilly, Palturam an MLA from Balrampur, Sangeeta Balwant an MLA from Gazipur Sadar seat and a first time MLA took the oath. She is 42 years old.
Sanjeev Kumar is an MLA from Obra seat in Sonebhadra. Dinesh Khatik is from Meerut. Dharamveer Prajapati from Hathras also took the oath.
Statistically Uttar Pradesh could have had 60 minister and there were 53 including 23 cabinet, 9 independent charge, and 21 minister of state.
In fact the state lost three ministers to illness. There were 56 ministers when the expansion took place for the first time in August 2019, since the government was formed in March 2017. So this was second expansion.
Strategically none of the ministers were removed and new faces were added in the government. But all this just few months before the elections that shall take place in the first half of the 2022.
