Yogi govt inducts 31 new faces, retains 21 ministers to strike balance

The new Yogi Adityanath government inducted 31 new faces while retaining 21 ministers to strike a balance between youth and experience with an eye on the 2024 parliamentary elections.

The ruling BJP also took into consideration caste and regional aspirations while picking ministers in a bid to further consolidate its hold over the politically crucial state which sends the maximum of 80 members to Lok Sabha.

Adityanath on Friday took oath as the Uttar Pradesh chief minister for a second term at a ceremony where 52 others were sworn in as ministers.

Among the 52 new ministers in the Adityanath government 2.0, thirty-six are aged between 40 and 60 while two are below 40 and 12 above 60 years of age.

Minister of State (Independent Charge) Arun Kumar Saxena, the third-term MLA from Bareilly, is the eldest at 73, while his colleague in the same rank Sandip Singh, the grandson of veteran BJP leader Kalyan Singh, is the youngest at 31.

The Council of Ministers has many graduates and postgraduates, while there are a few who have studied only up to Class 8.

The new team has 19 ministers from electorally dominant Other Backward Caste (OBC). It has seven each from Thakur and Brahmin communities, eight from Dalits, and four from Vaishya community. The council has a Muslim and a Sikh as well.

As for geographical representation, there are 23 ministers from western Uttar Pradesh this time, up from 12 last term; 14 from eastern UP, three less than the previous one, and 12 from central part of the state, one less than last time.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma was among the nine cabinet ministers dropped this time. Others who did not get the place in the new ministry are Satish Mahana, Rampathi Shastri, Jai Pratap Shahi and two prominent faces seen frequently on TV screens Siddarth Nath Singh and Shrikant Sharma.

New entrants in the cabinet rank are Baby Rani Maurya, Jaiveer Singh, IAS-turned-politician A K Sharma, Rakesh Sachan besides two from allied parties -- Ashish Patel of Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Sanjay Nishad of the NISHAD party.

Among Ministers of State (Independent charge) the new faces included Asim Arun, who quit as an IPS officer to join politics, and Daya Shankar Singh, who hit the headlines earlier due to his marital dispute with his former minister wife Swati Singh.

A look at the academic background of the ministers shows that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his two deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brijesh Pathak are graduates.

A K Shamra, Jitin Prasada, Anil Rajbhar, Rakesh Sachan and Yogendra Upadhya hold postgraduate degrees.

Nand Gopal Nandi, Sanjay Nishad and Jaiveer Singh are Intermediate pass.

Among MoS (Independent charge) JPS Rathore is M.Tech while Dharamveer Prajapati is Class 8 pass.

Among MoS, Somendra S Tomar has done Ph.D while Dinesh Khatik and Rakesh Rathore have studied up to Class 8.

There are five women in the new cabinet, including Baby Rani Maurya.