LUCKNOW: In a bid to blunt the PDA (backwards, Dalits, minorities) push of the Samajwadi Party in the run up to the next big battle, BJP on Sunday inducted six new ministers with three of them backwards and two Dalits.Two junior ministers who were promoted are also backwards while the sole upper caste face in the expansion is SP rebel MLA Manoj Pandey, a Brahmin.This was the second and probably the last expansion of the Yogi cabinet in its second term before the state goes to the polls early next year.Team Yogi now has maximum possible 60 members — 23 cabinet ministers, 16 ministers of state (independent charge) and 21 ministers of state.Governor Anandiben Patel administered the oath to former state BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary and Pandey as the cabinet ministers and to Kailash Rajput, Hansraj Vishwakarma, Krishna Paswan and Surendra Diler as the junior ministers.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath was present on the occasion.Besides, existing junior ministers Ajit Singh Pal and Somendra Tomar were given independent charge.Chaudhary and Vishwakarma are MLCs while the other four are members of the legislative assembly.Three of the newly inducted six ministers — Bhupendra Chaudhary, Hansraj Vishwakarma and Kailash Rajput -belong to OBC category in what is being seen as the BJP’s bid to make an outreach to the backwards to prick SP’s ‘PDA’ narrative that was seen as the reason for BJP’s tally slipping to 33 in Lok Sabha polls 2024 from 62 in 2019.Both promoted ministers, Tomar and Pal, too, are backwards. While Tomar belongs to Gujjar community, a strong votebank on certain West UP seats, Pal belongs to Pal community, having its presence mainly between Kanpur and Agra regions.Expansion done, over to organisational rejigTwo other news faces Krishna Paswan and Surendra Diler are non-Jatav Dalits. The BJP here has tried to hold back the non-Jatav vote bank, which has been supportive for the past several polls but drifted during the 2024 LS polls due to the Opposition’s narrative that a strong BJP government will change the Constitution and take away reservation. Like Dalits, a wide range of non-Yadav backwards are in focus for the induction: a Jat, a Lodh, a Vishwakarma, a Pal and a Gujjar.The induction of Brahmin lawmaker Manoj Pandey is yet again seen as the BJP’s bid to arrest anti-party sentiments among upper castes following UGC guidelines for the OBC students. The guidelines, however, were later stayed by the Supreme Court. Since then, opposition parties have made every attempt to portray the BJP becoming an anti-upper caste party.The 60-member Yogi ministry now has 25 OBCs, 21 upper castes, 11 Dalits and one Sikh, Punjabi Khatri and Muslim each.With the options to recheck caste and regional imbalances in the Yogi cabinet almost over, BJP workers and leaders will now have their eyes on organisational rejig.Just like the expansion, organisational re-structuring, too, is long awaited as it has been almost over four months since Union MoS for finance Pankaj Chaudhary was appointed as UP BJP chief.Patience has been key to the BJP leaders’ elevation. While Krishna Paswan has got ministerial berth in her third term as an MLA, Rajput had to wait for four terms before becoming aminister.Among the two cabinetrank ministers, Chaudhary has been waiting for over four months for his transition. The Jat leader from Moradabad was Panchayati Raj minister in Yogi 1.0 before becoming the BJP chief.Even Manoj Pandey, the reel SP MLA, who cross-voted for the BJP in Rajya Sabha polls in 2024 along with Gauriganj SP MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh and Kalpi MLA Vinod Chaturvedi, had been waiting since then for his rehabilitation. It has been over four months since Pandey along with others was declared unattached in the UP Assembly, which in fact had paved the way for him to join the ministry.
