Mulayam inducts 91 more ministers into huge cabinet

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav yesterday walked into the record books by inducting 91 more ministers, making his 98-member council of ministers the largest ever in the state.

Though Yadav has chosen to reward almost one out of two lawmakers supporting him with ministerial berths, he failed to satisfy the political ambitions of all. Quite a few erstwhile members of the rival Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who switched sides in time to give the Yadav government a clear majority last month boycotted yesterday's ceremony finding their names missing from the jumbo-sized ministry.

Among the ministers who were sworn in by Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri at Lucknow's K.D. Singh Babu Stadium yesterday were 24 Cabinet ministers and 67 junior ministers. This was the second expansion of his government after he took over the reins of the state on August 29, as he had inducted six cabinet ministers on September 6.

Yadav's Samajwadi Party, which is the largest partner in the 11-party coalition, has the largest chunk of ministerial berths with 20 out of 24 Cabinet ministers sworn in yesterday belonging to his party.

The six Cabinet ministers inducted earlier had two each from the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP).

The non-Samajwadi Party Cabinet ministers inducted yesterday include two from the RLD and one each of two one-leader parties, namely Hari Shankar Tiwari of the Loktantrik Congress Party and R.K. Chaudhury of Loktantrik Parivartan Party.

It is clear that those who joined the Samajwadi Party have been ignored while those who kept their independent identities intact have been accommodated.

Incidentally, the RLD that has 14 lawmakers in the state assembly, got seven ministerial berths as besides the two Cabinet ministers, three RLD members were made junior ministers. The RLD chief, the former federal Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh, had made it clear that anything lesser than seven berths is not acceptable to him since Yadav had already rewarded the RKP, which has four lawmakers, by making two of its nominees as cabinet ministers in the first phase of expansion.

Yadav did not stop at getting a jumbo council of ministers to help him run the administration as he made six of his Samajwadi Party lawmakers deputy chairmen of various state corporations with junior ministers' ranks and perks while making Ram Sharan Das, the Uttar Pradesh Samajwadi Party chief, as deputy chairman of the state planning commission with the rank and perks of a Cabinet minister.

Yadav had all along been insisting that his council of ministers will be smaller in size since he intends to give a model government to propel development related works in the state. His lofty claims however fell apart as he succumbed to the compulsions of coalition politics. Portfolios of all the 97 ministers were expected to be announced late last night.

STRENGTH

Largest-ever UP government
* Mulayam Singh Yadav with 97 ministers besides himself forms the largest ever government in Uttar Pradesh.

* Kalyan Singh, the RKP chief, headed a 95-member ministry as the BJP chief minister.

* Kalyan's successors, Ram Prakash Gupta, Rajnath Singh and Mayawati had 91-, 72- and 86-member council of ministers.

* New legislation being discussed at the centre proposes to fix a maximum of 15 per cent of the assembly's strength for any ministry.

* UP with 403 lawmakers thus should not have more than 61 ministers.