Yogi brings in 23 new ministers, keeps caste & regional balance

Tribune News Service
Lucknow, August 21

With focus on the 2022 elections, the first expansion of the 29-month-old Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath government on Wednesday maintained the caste and regional balance with the swearing in of 23 additional ministers.

Governor Anandiben Patel inducted six Cabinet ministers, six ministers of state with independent charge and 11 ministers of state.

Now the CM Yogi government has 56 ministers, including CM Yogi, his two deputy CMs, 22 Cabinet ministers, nine ministers with independent charge and 22 ministers of state.

Among the 23 newly inducted ministers six are Brahmin, four Rajputs, three Vashiya and 10 belong to the Dalit and OBC castes.

The expansion has also attempted to correct the regional imbalance in the Yogi government. Despite a landslide majority, the districts of western UP had not received adequate representation in the first government sworn in March 2017.

Agra gets two ministers — Agra Cantonment MLA G S Dharmesh and Fatehpur Sikri MLA Udaybhan Singh. Muzaffarnagar also gets two ministers Kapil Dev Agarwal representing the Sadar seat and Vijay Kumar Kashyap from Charthal Vidhan Sabha seat. 

From western UP’s Bulandshahr, Shikarpur MLA Anil Kumar Sharma is now a minister of state.