After Nitish Kumar, the BJP’s landslide win in Lok Sabha polls claimed new casualties in Uttar Pradesh today with 36 SP leaders having MoS status in the state government being sacked and BSP chief Mayawati scrapping all party units.
Stung by Samajwadi Party’s rout at the polls, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav gave marching orders to the 36 leaders who are holding various official positions in Minister of State (MoS) rank as part of political appointments. Yadav, however, ruled out his resignation.
SP sources said six leaders from the minority community were among those who got the axe. As the political fallout of the resounding BJP win in UP spread, the sources said some Cabinet and state ministers may be also sacked.
Amid demands for his resignation, Akhilesh, however, indicated that he was in no mood to quit and said reasons behind SP’s poor show were being reviewed. He was speaking after presiding over the first state Cabinet meeting in the aftermath of the poll results.
Prominent among those who have been removed are Narendra Bhati and Surendra Mohan Agarwal, who lost in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Kanpur seats respectively, RLD turncoat Anuradha Chowdhury, traders’ body leader Sandeep Bansal, ex-Agra Mayor Anjula Mahaur, Surabhi Shukla, Ranjana Bajpai, KC Pandey, Kamlesh Pathak, Ashu Malik, Satish Dixit and Manoj Rai.
Those from the minority community included Anis Mansori, Mohammad Abbas, Iqbal Ali, Haji Iqram and Kamruddin, the sources added.
Raja Chaturvedi and Ram Singh Rana, former student leaders, were also sacked.
The ruling party got five out of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, just two years after it got a spectacular mandate in the Assembly elections and all the winners are from the Yadav family. SP had 23 MPs in the outgoing house.
BJP and its ally Apna Dal clinched 73 while Congress got two seats.
JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar resigned as Chief Minister last Saturday taking responsibility for the party’s rout in Bihar.
Mayawati, who reviewed the BSP’s performance with office bearers and leaders at a meeting at the party office here, dissolved all the Assembly, district and state-level committees of the party, BSP sources said.
BSP, which had 20 MPs in the last Lok Sabha, failed to open its account.
The party chief would now reorganise all the committees after taking stock of the ground situation, the sources said.
The party would also have new coordinators as the role of some of them has come in for attack because of the bad showing at the hustings, the sources said, adding the coordinators have been charged with misinforming the party chief about the Lok Sabha preparations and the mood of the public.
The party chief interacted with leaders and personally questioned them on the reasons that led to one of party’s worst performances, especially in Uttar Pradesh where its vote percentage has also come down.
Mayawati came down heavily on the party leaders and pulled them up for their laxity during the elections.
The BSP supremo had indicated that she would be restructuring the party organisation to prepare for the next Assembly elections and rejuvenating cadres.