Akhilesh Yadav, the chief
minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state with maximum
legislatives seats in Sansad (the Parliament of India) and in the state
assembly, in a reform step (or in a corrective step), yesterday, dismissed some
ministers and divested some others from his cabinet.
When Akhilesh Yadav had stormed
the power corridors of Uttar Pradesh in early months of 2012 with a thumping
majority, he had reignited hopes of expecting some positive change in the
hopeless political culture of Uttar Pradesh – being dragged backward by a
politics riddled with caste and religion – with no development.
The state saw hopes in a young
CM, at 38, in spite of the past bad name of political excesses associated with
his Samajwadi Party members.
Now, after almost four years, we
can say it has been a complete letdown. We can safely that only the government
changed in Lucknow, not the culture of governance. In fact, functionally, it
got even worse than during Mayawati’s days. Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati was
UP’s CM for five years before Akhilesh Yadav won the office in 2012 election.
We don’t need to write much here.
A cursory look at portfolios of some of the sacked and divested ministers is
enough to tell the story how has been the political culture in the state. Here
is the list (the complete UP Cabinet list is even more interesting):
Sacked – Cabinet Ministers
Ambika Chaudhary - Backward Class
Welfare, Handicapped Welfare
Raja Mahendra Aridaman Singh - Stamp
and Court Fees, Civil Defence, Registration
Shiv Kumar Beria - Textile and Sericulture
Industries
Narad Rai - Khadi and Village
Industries
Shivkant Ojha - Technical
Education
Sacked –Ministers of State
Bhagwat Sharan Gangawar - MSME, Export
Promotion
Alok Kumar Shakya - Technical Education
Yogesh Pratap Singh alias Yogesh
Bhaiya - Basic Education
Divested from their portfolios:
(To be allotted fresh ones on
October 31, i.e., tomorrow, when the Cabinet reshuffle takes place.)
Brahma Shanker Tripathi - Homeguards,
Prantiya Raksha Dal
Iqbal Mehmood - Fisheries, Public
Enterprises
Mehbood Ali - Secondary Education
Ramgovind Chaudhary - Basic
Education
Awadhesh Prasad - Social Welfare,
SC&ST Welfare, Sainik welfare
Parasnath Yadav - Horticulture
and Food Processing
Raja Bhaiya - Food and Civil
Supplies Minister
Ahmad Hasan - Health
Durga Prasad Yadav - Transport
So, there are quite innovative
portfolios, even for petty functions like ‘Stamp and Court Fees’, ‘Civil
Defence’, ‘Homeguards’ – there are different portfolios for ‘Social Welfare and
Backward Class Welfare’, - clubbed
portfolios like ‘Fisheries and Public Enterprises’ – various portfolios for
Education, i.e., Technical Education, Secondary Education, Basic Education – and
so on.
Obviously, most of the portfolios
allocated in Uttar Pradesh don’t have functional spread of a size that require
full time ministries – but as there are ministers – so there are ministries –
with names that naturally bring a satirical smile.
After almost four years, Akhilesh
Yadav has sacked some, and has divested some more, who will be given fresh portfolios
tomorrow.
But there are many more with many
controversies with them associated – and there are ministries like separate ‘Irrigation
and Minor Irrigation’ portfolios, ministry for ‘Political Pension’, ministry
for ‘Zoological Gardens’ and so on.
A look at the ministerial
allocations in UP tells the emphasis has been more on accommodating as much
names as possible than introducing a culture of ‘governance efficiency’ – and it
reflects well in his government’s performance so far – and one more year is not
expected to bring any change on the ground – even after this big reshuffle intended
to give a ‘political message’ of ‘Akhilesh Yadav being more in control with a
young Cabinet’.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/
