Over half of Adityanath’s team of 52 debutant ministers; 5 women, 2 ex-civil servants

More than 50 per cent of his Council of Ministers are new faces. Among the big names who have been dropped are former deputy CM Dinesh Sharma and former Cabinet ministers Siddharth Nath Singh and Mahendra Singh.

Like in his previous term, Adityanath will have two deputies. While Keshav Prasad Maurya retains his Deputy CM post despite losing his Sirathu Assembly seat in the recent polls, Brajesh Pathak, Law Minister in the last Yogi government and former BSP leader, has been elevated as Deputy CM, replacing former deputy CM Dinesh Sharma as the Brahmin face in the Cabinet.

The new government has five women ministers – one with a Cabinet rank (Baby Rani Maurya), one MoS with Independent charge (Gulab Devi) and three MoSes (Pratibha Shukla, Rajni Tewari and Vijay Laxmi Gautam).

At least two former civil servants have made it to the new team – while former Gujarat cadre IAS officer Arvind Sharma has been inducted as Cabinet minister, former IPS officer Asim Arun is MoS (Independent Charge). Arun had taken voluntary retirement just before the Assembly polls to contest from Kannauj.

The list of 52 has at least 19 ministers from the OBC communities (including Jats, Gujjars, Yadavs, Kurmis, Nishads). Among the OBCs, three are Jats – Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary, who has been retained as Cabinet minister, and Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, who was MoS (Independent) in the last government, has been elevated to the Cabinet. Swati Singh, former minister for Women’s Welfare, has been dropped while her husband Dayashankar Singh finds a berth as MoS (Independent Charge). Swati Singh had been denied an Assembly ticket that went to her husband Dayashankar Singh, who won from Ballia.

The only Gujjar minister in the last government, Ashok Katariya of Bijnor, has been replaced with Somendra Tomar, MLA from Meerut South.

The Council of Minsters has seven Brahmins and seven Thakurs, besides two Bhumihars. There are eight Dalit ministers, including Cabinet Minister Baby Rani Maurya, two MoS (Independent charge) Asim Arun and Gulabo Devi, and five MoSes – Dinesh Khatik, Manohar Lal Kori, Suresh Rahi, Anup Valmiki and Vijay Laxmi Gautam.

Like in Adityanath’s previous team, there is only one Muslim face – 32-year-old MoS Mohammad Danish Azad has replaced Mohsin Raza.

The government has four Kurmi (OBC) ministers, including state BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh and Union Minister Anupriya Patel’s husband and Apna Dal (Sonewal) leader Ashish Patel, who is an MLC.

At least three of the younger faces come from political families.

While Jitin Prasada, who left the Congress last year to join the BJP and was later nominated an MLC, is now a Cabinet minister, Nitin Agrawal, son of Naresh Agrawal who joined the BJP after stints in the Congress, BSP and SP, has been sworn in as MoS (Independent). Nitin, who was elected on an SP ticket in 2017, was later elected Deputy Speaker in the outgoing UP Assembly with the help of the BJP. Sandeep Singh, grandson of former BJP stalwart and former CM Kalyan Singh, is also among the Ministers of State. Sandeep’s father Rajveer Singh is BJP Lok Sabha MP from Etah.

While there was much talk about former Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer Rajeshwar Singh finding a place in Adityanath’s team, the newly elected MLA from Sarojini Nagar in Lucknow is not on the list of 52.

Besides Keshav Maurya and Pathak, among those who have been retained include Surya Pratap Shahi, Suresh Khanna, Lakshminarain Chaudhary, Nandgopal Gupta alias Nandi, Anil Rajbhar, Kapildev Agrawal, Ravindra Jaiswal, Sandeep Singh, Gireesh Yadav and Baldev Singh Aulakh.