Yogi holds meet with ministers amid buzz about dissidence

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday met ministers from the state at his residence in Lucknow to discuss the upcoming assembly bypolls in 10 constituencies.

The floods in the state, which have so far affected more than 700 villages across 17 districts, were also discussed during the meeting.

The meeting comes weeks after the Lok Sabha elections in which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party performed poorly. The party was reduced to 33 seats, a drop of 29 seats from 2019.

The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) gained ground with the Samajwadi Party (SP) securing a win on 37 seats, a jump of 32 seats as compared to 2019, and the Congress winning on six seats.

"The meeting today was especially held to discuss the upcoming elections and we will win all the 10 assembly seats where by-elections are to be held," Finance Minister Suresh Khanna said after the meeting.

All the Uttar Pradesh cabinet ministers and ministers of state were present in the meeting, sources said.

Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh, who also attended the meeting, said 'discussions were held on floods along with developmental works'.

The 10 assembly seats, which are set to go to bypolls, are Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Milkipur (Ayodhya), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sisamau (Kanpur Nagar), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad).

Nine of the 10 seats fell vacant after the MLAs resigned following their victory in the Lok Sabha polls. Prominent among these seats was Karhal (Mainpuri), which fell vacant after SP chief Akhilesh Yadav resigned following his elections to the Lok Sabha from Kannauj.

SP's Irfan Solanki's Sisamau assembly seat in Kanpur Nagar was declared vacant following his disqualification in view of his seven-year imprisonment by MP/MLA court.

CM's meeting with ministers comes amid buzz about less-than-warm relations between him and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.

Hours after Maurya met BJP chief J P Nadda in New Delhi on Tuesday, a post on X by the office of the Deputy CM quoted him as saying, "The organisation is bigger than the government, the pain of the workers is my pain. No one is bigger than the organization, the workers are the pride."

Maurya had made these remarks at the state party's extended executive meeting on Sunday.

Now, this post by his office after his meeting with Nadda has caused a flutter in political circles.

In private conversations, a number of BJP leaders from the state, including those who lost in the Lok Sabha polls, have been critical of the chief minister's working style and cited it as one of the reasons for their loss.

However, Adityanath is seen by his supporters as a popular chief minister who has aggressively pursued the party's Hindutva agenda and maintained a firm grip on law and order.

Earlier, at a state working committee meeting of the BJP on July 14, Adityanath said that overconfidence had hurt their expectations in the state.

-- with inputs from agencies