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Yogi govt 2.0 swearing in on March 25 set to be grand affair
Modi, Shah, Sonia and Mulayam among VIPs to grace the occasion; beneficiaries of various government schemes also invited
The swearing in ceremony of the Yogi Adityanath government 2.0 in Uttar Pradesh on March 25 is slated to be a grand affair at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee stadium here with the attendees including over 150 VIPs besides commoners, mainly beneficiaries of the various government schemes.
Invites are being sent out to opposition leaders – Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi, Samajwadi Party leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra among others, officials here said.
The BJP top brass, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defence minister Rajnath Singh, union home minister Amit Shah, education minister and party’s UP election panel in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, co-incharge and union minister Anurag Thakur, chief ministers and deputy CMs of nearly all BJP-ruled states will be present on the occasion, the party leaders confirmed.
BJP allies – Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad party – who won 18 seats, would be present too. Leaders of both these parties have met senior BJP leaders in Delhi and are hopeful of improved representation in UP government.
In 2017, Apna Dal (Sonelal) had one representative in the Yogi government.
“The list of ministers of BJP’s 2.0 government will be known after chief minister Yogi Adityanath returns from Gorakhpur, where he participated in the traditional Holi festivities over the last couple of days,” a BJP leader said.
Yogi’s new government, while reflecting the party’s continued focus on OBCs and dalits, would also feature women, the leader said.
There is no clarity whether the new government would have deputy chief ministers and if they could be more than two.
“Yogi ji knows the party plan and it will be unveiled over the next week,” a party leader added, when asked if the new government would reflect the BJP’s plan for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Additional chief secretary, information, Navneet Sehgal visited the Vajpayee stadium on Saturday to take stock of the preparations for the swearing in ceremony. The stadium has a seating capacity of 50,000 people.
The BJP’s beneficiary outreach initiative had figured in nearly all campaign pitches of top BJP leaders, including Modi. The invitation to beneficiaries for the swearing in, of the first same party government to be consecutively voted back to power in 37 years, is being seen as the party’s signal of the government continuing with its beneficiary outreach initiatives.
Already, there are indications that the new BJP government might continue with the free ration scheme for 15 crore poor people. The scheme, which started during the Covid surge, was to end in March.
Of these 15 crore beneficiaries, 9 crore are from Other Backward Castes (OBCs), 3 crore dalits and an equal number of poor from other castes.
Chief secretary Durga Shankar Mishra is also holding meetings to decide the roll out of various pre-poll promises BJP made during the 2022 UP poll campaign.
Amit Shah, the central observer for overseeing the process of government formation, is expected to arrive in Lucknow on Sunday or Monday, for next week’s legislative party meeting where Yogi is expected to be formally elected as party leader and would then be invited by governor Anandiben Patel to form the government.
There was a buzz of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, who contested the recent polls in alliance with Samajwadi Party, meeting top BJP leaders and likely to be present at the swearing in ceremony. But Rajbhar, a former BJP ally, denied the buzz.
“We are focused on the UP MLC polls and would also contest the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with Samajwadi Party,” Rajbhar said.
