bjp: Yogi’s swearing-in today; 48 may be made ministers, no word on deputy CMs

Yogi Adityanath was elected the leader of the BJP Legislature Party in a meeting held on Thursday in Lucknow’s Lok Bhawan. Union Home Minister Amit Shah and former Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das attended the meeting as observers and co-observers respectively.

Senior BJP leader Suresh Khanna proposed Adityanath’s name, which was supported by five BJP MLAs, Surya Pratap Shahi, Baby Rani Maurya, Ram Naresh Agnihotri, Sushil Shakya and Nand Gopal Nandi. Alliance partner Nishad Party and Apna Dal(S), represented by Sanjay Nishad and Ashish Patel, also supported the proposal.

Later in the evening, Adityanath along with party and coalition leaders met Governor Anandiben Patel and formally staked claim to form the government.

The swearing-in ceremony will take place on Friday at the Ekana Stadium, and will be attended by PM Modi, several Union ministers, chief ministers and deputy chief ministers of BJP-ruled states and leaders of opposition parties.

Though the names of the deputy chief ministers are still under suspense, sources told ET that several ministers from the previous cabinet will be retained. Brajesh Pathak, Shrikant Sharma, Mahendra Singh, Siddharth Nath Singh, Nand Gopal Nandi and Sandeep Singh are likely to get another chance. The new faces in the cabinet are likely to include Baby Rani Maurya, Asim Arun and Rajeshwar Singh, who will be among the 48 ministers to be sworn-in.

In 2017, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced two deputy CMs. This time two deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma were present on the stage, but Adityanath or Amit Shah did not make any announcement.

Addressing the MLAs, the newly elected CM Adityanath said that the new government will work as a team to fulfill the promises.

“This victory proves that the people of UP have rejected dynastic politics and have given priority to a government that works for the welfare of the people without any bias,” he cautioned his new allies. given by the party.”

Addressing the MLAs, Amit Shah said, “This is the first time a Chief Minister has come to power in UP by winning the mandate and it is historic.” “The new government under the guidance of PM Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath will work to strengthen the strong foundation of development and good governance laid in the last five years. The new government will work to make UP the number one state in the country.”

Earlier, UP election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, UP in-charge Radha Mohan Singh, UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh and UP BJP general secretary Sunil Bansal attended the legislature party meeting.

Originally published at Pen 18