Former Congress leader Jitin Prasada, who was once close with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, is now a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh as the BJP on Sunday announced a sudden Cabinet expansion with a few months left for the state assembly election. Reports said the ministers were not even aware that they are being accommodated in the Cabinet. The induction of Jitin Prasada will consolidate the Brahmin votes for the BJP in the upcoming election. Brahmins constitute over 10 per cent of UP’s voters and the community has already tilted from the Congress towards the BJP over the years.

This expansion was announced hurriedly on Sunday indicating that it is the party’s emergency move to maximise the representation of castes that matter for the vote bank, though Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet can only include seven new faces as there are already 53 ministers in the UP cabinet. While Jitin Prasada is a Brahmin, Palturam, Dinesh Khatik are SC, Chhatarpal Gangwar represents Kurmi, Sangeeta Balwant Bind,  Sanjeev Kumar Gond ST.  Apart from the six new ministers, Dharamveer Prajapati has also been inducted into the cabinet. 

The BJP has already announced a pre-poll alliance with Nishad (Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal) party. Hence the induction of Sanjay Nishad, who wanted to be projected as the deputy CM face in the upcoming election, into the Cabinet was being speculated. Another speculated name was former Uttarakhand governor Baby Ranu Maurya, but they have not been accommodated.

The Uttar Pradesh Assembly has 403 seats. In the 2017 UP Assembly elections, the BJP won 312 seats while its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) won nine seats. The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) too had contested the 2017 assembly polls in alliance with the BJP and won four seats but it walked out of the alliance in 2019.

Commenting on the Cabinet expansion, Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav said, “It won’t help BJP. Even if there are a few new faces, the government ultimately is of BJP…and the people have made up their mind to change the government”.

(With agency inputs)