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Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday inducted 57 new ministers into her Cabinet taking its strength to a whopping 80.
Twenty-three of the new ministers are from the Bharatiya Janata Party and 28 from the Bahujan Samaj Party, two from the Loktantrik Congress Party, three from the Rashtriya Lok Tantrik Party and one from Janata Dal-United.
Uttar Pradesh, which is India's most populous state, had earlier beaten all records when the then chief minister Kalyan Singh increased the strength of the council of ministers to 95. His successor Rajnath Singh subsequently brought it down to 85.
The much-awaited expansion, however, did have its share of bruised egos. While Lalloo Singh, a dissatisfied BJP MLA from the politically sensitive Ayodhya constituency, refused to get sworn in as a minister of state, another senior BJP legislator from Hardoi, Ganga Bhakt Singh, offered to resign as a mark of protest against his exclusion from the council of ministers.
Independent members, represented by Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, also voiced their protest by threatening to reconsider their support to the Mayawati-led BSP-BJP coalition in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly.
An alliance was struck on May 3 between the BJP, the BSP and a few smaller political groups, together with independents, to form the government in the wake of a hung verdict at the last assembly poll in February.
Fifteen ministers from the socially backward castes, 12 from the Scheduled Castes, nine each from the Thakurs and Brahmins and three Muslims completed Mayawati's caste calisthenics. Before the expansion there was a belief that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister would placate her Muslim flock of 15 MLAs.
Among the 56 sworn-in, as many as 44 were new faces, which was another reason for the brewing resentment in both the BJP and its allies. "We are not going to take it lying down," remarked a BJP legislator, who had held an important charge in the previous dispensation led by Rajnath Singh.
Another member of the state Legislative Council, who had been lobbying his case with the top BJP leadership in New Delhi looked terribly disappointed over his exclusion. "Seniority has been ignored in the selection of ministers," he said.
Mayawati, however, said she had struck an 'ideal balance' between various constituents of the coalition. "I have taken utmost care to not only ensure due representation to each and every area of the state, but also to every section of society," she told a press conference that followed the swearing in ceremony.
While admitting that she had inducted some persons with a shady past, she explained, "I have done this in view of the change that I have witnessed in them."
"Well, even if someone is bad, he ought to be given a chance to mend himself, and that is what I am trying to do," she added.
She justified the size of the Cabinet saying, "Well, UP is India's most populous state with 403 assembly constituencies spread across a vast area."
She also did not rule out the possibility of another expansion in the future.
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