Yogi keeps home, Khanna finance as Pathak gets health, Maurya rural development - Hindustan Times
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Yogi keeps home, Khanna finance as Pathak gets health, Maurya rural development

Mar 29, 2022 04:45 AM IST

Former bureaucrat AK Sharma bags urban development and power ministries, while ex-top cop Asim Arun has been made social welfare minister.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath will head home, vigilance and appointments among the 34 departments with him, as portfolios of the new BJP-led UP government were announced on Monday.

As the portfolios for the new BJP-led UP government were announced on Monday, Yogi Adityanath will oversee home, vigilance, and appointments. (Agency)
As the portfolios for the new BJP-led UP government were announced on Monday, Yogi Adityanath will oversee home, vigilance, and appointments. (Agency)

Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya gets rural development and food processing, while another deputy chief minister Brijesh Pathak will lead the health ministry, among others.

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Suresh Khanna will continue to take care of finance and parliamentary affairs, Swatantra Dev Singh jal shakti and Baby Rani Maurya women and child welfare departments.

Former bureaucrat AK Sharma, who had worked under Prime Minister Narendra Modi both in Gujarat and in Delhi, has bagged the important portfolios of urban development and power.

Key portfolios
Key portfolios

In Yogi’s first government, while Ashutosh Tandon held urban development, Shrikant Sharma was the power minister. Both haven’t found a place in Yogi government 2.0. Shrikant is said to be in the race for UP BJP chief’s post.

In Gujarat, Sharma was associated with several of Modi’s pet projects, including organising the ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ summit, and hence his appointment as urban development minister has been made apparently to tap his planning and creativity skills, a BJP leader indicated.

Leaders of BJP’s two allies -- Nishad party chief Sanjay Nishad has expectedly been made fisheries minister while Ashish Patel, husband of Apna Dal (Sonelal) leader and union minister Anupriya Patel, has been allocated technical education portfolio.

Ashish, a former executive engineer of UP Jal Nigam, has a degree in civil engineering.

“The health ministry to Brajesh Pathak could be seen as an acknowledgement of the work he did in Covid times, organizing admissions, beds and oxygen cylinders, and the rural development ministry has been to Keshav Maurya with an eye on 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” said AP Tiwari, a political analyst.

While senior ministers Suresh Khanna, a nine-term lawmaker, and Surya Pratap Shahi, a fifth-term lawmaker, retained their old portfolios, finance and parliamentary affairs, and agriculture respectively, new faces – former UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev, an OBC, has been made Jal Shakti and flood control minister and Baby Rani Maurya, a Jatav dalit, has been tasked with women and child welfare departments.

Former union minister Jitin Prasada, who holds an MBA diploma, will be the new PWD minister. Yogendra Upadhaya has been made the higher education minister, while Nand Gopal ‘Nandi’, who was the minorities’ minister in the previous Yogi government, has this time been given key portfolios -- industrial development, export promotion, NRI and investments.

Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary, a Jat leader, has retained panchayati raj, while Rakesh Sachan has been made MSME and khadi minister while Anil Rajbhar gets labour.

Nitin Agarwal, minister of state (independent charge), has been made excise minister while UP BJP vice president Daya Shankar Singh has been made the new transport minister.

Former anti-terrorist squad (ATS) chief Asim Arun has been made the new social welfare minister. Sandeep Singh, grandson of former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh, has been made basic education minister, while Gulab Devi will be the minister for secondary education.

Dharamvir Prajapati will be minister for jail and home guards while Narendra Kashyap has got backward welfare portfolio. Arun Kumar Saxena is the new forest minister while Daya Shankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’ is Ayush minister.

After allocation of portfolios, the chief minister congratulated his ministers and hoped they would live up to the “people’s expectations.”

Soon after, several of his ministers, like Nitin Agarwal, began tweeting thanks to him.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Manish Chandra Pandey is a Lucknow-based Senior Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times’ political bureau in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Along with political reporting, he loves to write offbeat/human interest stories that people connect with. Manish also covers departments. He feels he has a lot to learn not just from veterans, but also from newcomers who make him realise that there is so much to unlearn.

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