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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath may soon expand his cabinet and a discussion on this is expected to take place at the UP BJP working committee meeting on Friday.
Sources familiar with the development said the working committee will discuss the party’s strategy for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2022. “Besides the election strategy, the meeting will also discuss issues related to the expansion of the cabinet,” a source said, adding that the cabinet will be expanded “soon”.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi overhauled the Union cabinet making several important changes. The expansion of the Union Cabinet saw the inclusion of seven MPs from Uttar Predesh, an election candidate.
With 14 MPs from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as ministers, the state now represents the largest number of ministers.
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In the Centre, the BJP has 84 MPs from Uttar Pradesh-62 in the Lok Sabha and 22 in the Rajya Sabha, while its ally Apna Dal has two.
This is the first time Uttar Pradesh has had such representation in the central government. This is partly due to the upcoming assembly election in the state.
The 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election is extremely crucial for the BJP as its outcome is expected to set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP has recently suffered a major beating in West Bengal despite injecting massive political capital and human resources.
In the last Assembly election, the BJP won 312 out of 403 Assembly seats, followed by the Samajwadi Party (47 seats) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (19 seats).
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