Hindustan Times | With 8 berths, UP gets the lion’s share in PM Modi’s ministry

May 31,2019

Uttar Pradesh figured prominently in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheme of things with 8 out of 57 ministers from the state taking oath as union ministers on Thursday.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an MP from Varanasi, Lucknow MP Rajnath Singh, who took oath after Modi, is the second most prominent face from the state along with Smriti Irani who defeated Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his family pocket borough of Amethi.

Other ministers from Uttar Pradesh include Mahendra Nath Pandey (Chandauli), Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur), Gen (retd) VK Singh (Ghaziabad), Santosh Gangwar (Bareilly), Sanjeev Balyan (Muzaffarnagar) and Hardeep Puri, who is a Rajya Sabha member from UP.

However, those who could not make it to the ministry this time are Maneka Gandhi, who is likely to become the pro-tem speaker of Lok Sabha, Mahesh Sharma, Shiv Pratap Shukla and Satyapal Singh.

Anupriya Patel, whose Apna Dal (Sonelal) bagged two seats to take NDA’s tally to 64 in the state was conspicuous by her absence in the list of ministers this time, though she was a part of the previous government.

Expressing happiness over UP’s representation in the Modi government, BJP leader Manish Dixit said, “With 62 MPs, the state has contributed strongly to ensure a second term for Narendra Modi.”Many in Uttar Pradesh BJP were also expecting that Kannauj MP Subrat Pathak who defeated Dimple Yadav, wife of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, would also be sworn-in as a minister. “I think the party will accommodate such leaders, who have defeated big leaders, to reward them,” a party leader, who did not want to be named, said.