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Yogi takes oath as UP’s CM at mega ceremony
Since 1985 this is also the first time a party has returned to power.
Yogi Adityanath created political history on Friday, taking oath as chief minister of India’s most populous and politically significant state, becoming the only man in Uttar Pradesh’s history to complete a full five year term, and then return to power. In a glittering ceremony at Atal Bihari Vajpayee cricket stadium in Lucknow, in front of an estimated seventy thousand people, Adityanath took oath at 4.20 pm.
Since 1985 this is also the first time a party has returned to power.
The ceremony comes a day after Adityanath was unanimously elected as the leader of the new legislators in the presence of Bharatiya Janata Party observers for the state, home minister Amit Shah and former Jharkhand chief minister Raghubar Das. On March 10, after an exhausting seven phase election that lasted close to a month, the BJP produced a stunning victory, overcoming the headwinds of a concerted Akhilesh Yadav-led opposition campaign, farmer anger, anti-incumbency, and issues such as unemployment. Yet, with Yogi Adityanath as its chief ministerial candidate, backed by the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and a campaign that kept law and order, and welfare delivery front and centre, the BJP romped home, winning 255 of the total 403 seats; its allies the Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal Party (NISHAD) won 12 and six seats, respectively.
The oath taking ceremony itself was a show of this strength, a display of the BJP’s power at the state and the national level. The packed to the rafters Vajpayee stadium in Lucknow was filled with screaming crowds, decorated with flowers, with many in the audience carrying toy bulldozers, now synonymous with Adityanath’s hard approach to law and order, including breaking down the houses of gangsters. On stage were at least 16 Union ministers including home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh as well as BJP president JP Nadda, and as many as 11 state chief ministers. Of these, 10 were from the BJP, including Pushkar Singh Dhami, N Biren Singh and Pramod Sawant, CM’s of Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa respectively, states the BJP also won on March 10. The eleventh chief minister present was Nitish Kumar of the Janata Dal (United), who heads a Bihar government in which the BJP is a primary partner.
In the middle of the dais were Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, both appearing to a thunderous ovation, sitting next to Uttar Pradesh governor Anandi Ben Patel. Immediately after the swearing in, Prime Minister Modi tweeted his congratulations and said, “Congratulations to Yogi Adityanath and his cabinet for taking oath as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. In the last five years, there have been many important milestones in the state’s path of development. I have faith that under your leadership, the state will cross new boundaries of progress keeping in mind the expectations of people, and script a new story.”
In response, in what were his first comments after taking oath, Adityanath, the 33rd chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, said, “Thank you for your wishes, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi! Under your inspirational leadership, Uttar Pradesh is reaching new heights of development. This path to progress will always continue.”
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who has resigned from his Lok Sabha seat and is set to be Leader of Opposition in the assembly, however, said, “Congratulations to the new government that they are taking oath in a stadium built by the SP. The oath should not just be to form government, but to truly serve the people.”
Governor Anandiben Patel administered the oath to Adityanath and 52 others, including two deputy chief ministers, 16 cabinet ministers, 14 ministers of state (independent charge) and 20 ministers of state. Keshav Prasad Maurya, one of the BJP’s biggest Other Backward Class (OBC) faces, kept his seat as deputy chief minister despite losing his assembly seat of Sirathu, with Brijesh Pathak, law minister in the first Adityanath cabinet, elevated to the position of the second deputy CM, replacing Dinesh Sharma.
In his message, Union home minister Amit Shah congratulated both deputy chief ministers and Yogi Adityanath, and said, “Congratulations to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Brijesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya, and the entire cabinet. I have faith that under the directions of Shri Narendra Modi, you will all set new benchmarks for good governance and poverty alleviation with complete dedication.”
Overall, 21 ministers of the previous government have been retained, and 22 dropped. The big names missing from the government include Mahendra Singh, Jal Shakti minister in the previous government, Shrikant Sharma, who was the state’s energy minister , Ashutosh Tandon, the incumbent urban development minister, Siddharth Nath Singh, who was the MSME minister and Jai Pratap Singh, the health minister. They may now find place in the BJP’s organisation with an eye on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, party officials said.
Instead, the new cabinet features state BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh, the party’s state general secretary JPS Rathore and state vice president Daya Shankar Singh. Two former bureaucrats, AK Sharma and Asim Arun were also prominent new names to figure. Sharma, a former Gujarat cadre IAS officer is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and worked in both the Chief Minister’s Office in Gujarat and later the Prime Minister’s Office, has been given a cabinet rank. Arun, a Dalit and former head of the UP Anti Terror Squad who quit government service just before the elections to contest has been made minister of state (independent) charge.
Former Uttarakhand governor Baby Rani Maurya, who resigned her post to contest the elections from Agra, and has long been the BJP’s Jatav Dalit face in Agra, which has traditionally been a Bahujan Samaj Party bastion, has also been made cabinet minister. The BJP’s allies Apna Dal (Sonelal) and the NISHAD party also found pride of place. Ashish Patel, MLC and husband of Union minister for state Anupriya Patel, and Sanjay Nishad, president of the Nishad party, are both cabinet ministers.
The new cabinet, much like the old one, only has one Muslim representative, with Danish Azad Ansari, the state secretary of the party’s minority cell replacing Mohsin Raza. He, along with Baldev Aulakh, a Sikh minister of state and a second-time lawmaker from Bisalpur, will now be the minority faces of the Adityanath government.
Apart from Baby Rani Maurya, four other women have found place in the government, including Vijay Laxmi Gautam, BJP’s women wing chief from Deoria in eastern UP and Gulab Devi, MLA from Chandausi, the only woman who was also minister in the previous cabinet.
UP BJP spokesperson Harish Srivastava said, “It is a government that shows hard work has been rewarded. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Yogi Adityanath stood up to accept greetings each time a new minister approached them after taking oath. This showcases how our leadership remains humble and sensitive. This is one approach that the government and the party has imbibed over the years,” Harish Srivastava.
Irshad Ilmi, a political observer said, “I think many are describing it as a jumbo government but don’t forget that today’s BJP takes decisions with an eye on the future. Various decisions that have been taken today will reflect the design ahead for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. ”
