With 3 OBCs & 2 Dalits, Cabinet rejig signals BJP's bid to blunt SP's PDA push ahead of 2027 UP polls

With three OBCs and two Dalits among the six BJP leaders who took oath as ministers in the Yogi Adityanath ministry 2.0 on Sunday, the Cabinet expansion can be seen as a move by the saffron party to blunt the Samajwadi Party's 'PDA' push ahead of next year's Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. PDA is a coinage used by the Samajwadi Party (SP) for 'Pichda' (backwards), Dalits and 'Alpsankhyak' (minorities), denoting the opposition party's overtures towards communities that hold the key to power in Uttar Pradesh. The induction of three OBC and two Dalit faces into the Cabinet made the ruling party's focus obvious, especially on non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits in the state. The three new OBC faces include Bhupendra Chaudhary (Jat), Kailash Rajput (Lodh) and Hansraj Vishwakarma (Lohar), while Krishna Paswan (Pasi) and Surendra Singh Daler (Valmiki) represent the Dalit communities. The sixth minister, Manoj Kumar Pandey, is a Brahmin. Additionally, two state ministers were promoted with independent charge – Ajit Pal (Pal) and Somendra Tomar (Gurjar) – both non-Yadav OBCs. The first Cabinet expansion of the Adityanath Cabinet took place on March 5, 2024, just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP faced shock reverses in Uttar Pradesh with the SP-Congress alliance winning 43 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, limiting the BJP-led-NDA to 36, down from 64 in 2019. This included the stunning loss of the Ayodhya seat to SP's Awadhesh Prasad, the first Dalit (Pasi) to win the constituency, strengthening the SP's belief that the PDA narrative can be a bankable option in 2027. Prasad was vocal again on Sunday. ''I congratulate the new ministers. However, it is obvious that the BJP is rattled by the SP's PDA push, and that is why we are convinced that 2027 would see the BJP's ouster from Uttar Pradesh,'' Prasad told PTI over the phone. That the saffron party was working to counter the SP's PDA card became obvious when senior ministers, including deputy chief ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, as well as Finance Minister Suresh Khanna, positioned the BJP as the ''real'' party that cared for the PDA. ''SP's PDA talk is bogus. We are the real PDA,'' Keshav Maurya said. Manoj Pandey, who represents the Unchahaar Assembly segment in Rae Bareli, the Lok Sabha constituency of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, was finally rewarded with a Cabinet berth for rebelling against the SP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when he voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha elections. The BJP considered that his Brahmin identity would be useful in aligning with this key upper caste group, which the opposition has consistently claimed was unhappy with the saffron party. After taking the oath, Pandey lost no time in targeting SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, his former political boss. ''The SP and its leadership are frustrated by the BJP's phenomenal election wins. As a BJP cadre, I will leave no stone unturned to carry out the tasks assigned to me by the party leadership,'' Pandey, now the second BJP minister in the Cabinet from Rae Bareli after Dinesh Pratap Singh, told PTI. Varanasi and Kannauj, too, have been fortified with additional ministers each, hinting at the BJP's carefully crafted political agenda ahead of next year's state polls. Hansraj Vishwakarma, BJP's Varanasi chief who took oath as a minister of state on Sunday, became the fourth minister in the Cabinet from the holy city – the other three being Labour Minister Anil Rajbhar and two ministers of state (independent charge), Ravindra Jaiswal and Daya Shankar Mishra 'Dayalu'. Barely 25 days back, a political controversy erupted over the alleged sexual assault and murder of a teenage girl from the Lohar community in Ghazipur, just 80 km from Varanasi. Thus, the elevation of Vishwakarma, a Lohar, is also being interpreted as an effort to assuage the community. ''No doubt the BJP is desperate, and this appointment, among others, shows its desperation,'' SP spokesman Anurag Bhadauria said. Sunday's Cabinet rejig also saw Kailash Rajput become the second BJP minister from Kannauj, the Lok Sabha constituency of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, after Social Welfare Minister Asim Arun, a Dalit.

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