Yogi meets RSS leaders ahead of likely changes
The meet stretched till late night but the reshuffle in UP unit of the BJP was likely to be much quicker, anytime after Makar Sankranti in keeping with the Hindu belief of beginning of auspicious days, said a party insider adding, the cabinet reshuffle, in which some non-performing ministers could be axed or downsized.
Amid speculations of a possible reshuffle soon, both in the BJP government and the party state unit, chief minister Yogi Adityanath met Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh veterans over dinner at his official 5 Kalidas Marg residence on Tuesday.
The meet stretched till late night but the reshuffle in UP unit of the BJP was likely to be much quicker, anytime after Makar Sankranti in keeping with the Hindu belief of beginning of auspicious days, said a party insider adding, the cabinet reshuffle, in which some non-performing ministers could be axed or downsized, could, however, take a while. Both matters were discussed at the meeting.
The Adityanath government currently has 47 ministers – 13 less than what Yogi can have in his ministry.
“Various issues from the performance of Yogi’s ministers, accommodation of party workers to key posts in the government and vacancies in state corporations, smoother coordination between the party and the government, development of ‘neglected’ Hindu religious spots and various social welfare projects that the RSS wants the Yogi government to roll out in UP were among the issues that came up for discussion,” a source said.
The RSS also wants the Yogi government to focus on 2019 Lok Sabha elections in which Adityanath would face the challenge of retaining the party’s stupendous show in 2014 general elections when it along with allies won 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats from the state.
“RSS wants the party and the government to have a clean image and that is what the talks must have largely focused on,” a party leader said.
The four-month-old state BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey is expected to pick his new team of office bearers as many of them from his predecessor Keshav Prasad Maurya’s team have now become ministers in the Adityanath government.
Maurya, who had earlier quit as BJP chief in keeping with the party’s one-man, one-post principle after becoming the deputy chief minister, was also part of the meeting. RSS bigwigs included Dattatreya Hosabale, Krishna Gopal as well as key RSS pointsperson in UP BJP Sunil Bansal.
