With eye on polls, Modi gives lion’s share to U.P., Bihar

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where Assembly elections are due in the next three years, got the lion’s share of berths as the Union Ministry was expanded on Sunday. Goa got its first Cabinet Minister and Telangana its first representative in the Ministry.

Kerala, as before, was left out. Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Sikkim and Tripura went unrepresented.

Of the 21 Ministers inducted into the Narendra Modi Ministry, Uttar Pradesh got the highest of four berths, followed by Bihar with three.

Former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was sworn in as a Cabinet Minister. Telangana MP Bandaru Dattatreya, the first representative from his State in the Union Ministry, was made Minister of State with independent charge.

The four new faces from Uttar Pradesh are Minister of State (Independent) Mahesh Sharma (Gautam Budh Nagar) and Ministers of State Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi (Rajya Sabha), Ram Shankar Katheria (Agra), Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).

The new Bihar faces are Minister of State (Independent) Rajiv Pratap Rudy (Saran) and Ministers of State Ram Kirpal Yadav (Patliputra) and Giriraj Singh (Nawada).

Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, which have five and four Ministers, respectively, in the Cabinet at present, did not get a berth this time.

Senior BJP leader J.P. Nadda’s inclusion gives representation to Himachal Pradesh. West Bengal also got a representative with the inclusion of Babul Supriyo in the Ministry.

With this, Uttar Pradesh has 13 berths, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, followed by Bihar (eight) and Maharashtra (seven).

With the inclusion of Sanwar Lal Jat and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, the representation from Rajasthan went up to three.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who was the lone representative from Punjab, will have a State colleague as Vijay Sampla was sworn in as a Minister of State.

With the inclusion of Birendra Singh as Cabinet Minister, Haryana’s representation has gone up to three. The other two Ministers from the State are Rao Inderjit Singh and Kishanpal.

Jharkhand got representation with the inclusion of Jayant Sinha, son of Yashwant Sinha, while Andhra Pradesh will be represented by Y.S. Chowdhary, Minister of State.

Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra got two representatives each in the expansion, which took the total strength of the council from 45 to 66.

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