Surprise exits: Prominent faces dropped from Yogi cabinet

Lucknow, Mar 25: Dinesh Sharma, Shrikant Sharma and Siddhartha Nath Singh among the prominent BJP leaders missing from the Yogi Adityanath 2.0 government as new ministers took oath at a grand swearing-in ceremony here on Friday.

The oath ceremony was held at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium in the presence of PM Narendra Modi and top BJP leaders.

Dinesh Sharma, who in the previous Yogi Adityanath government held the charge of the deputy CM, has been replaced by Brajesh Pathak.

The name of Satish Mahana, who headed the industry department in the previous BJP government and was elected from Maharajpur in Kanpur district, was missing from the list of new ministers.

Ramapati Shastri, a BJP MLA from Mankapur in Gonda district, too was left out. Earlier, he held the charge of the social welfare minister.

With UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh taking oath as a cabinet minister, the post of state party chief is likely to fall vacant and a new leader may be appointed to the position, a senior leader said, citing the "one person, one post" principle.

Among the leaders who failed to get a ministerial berth this time were Jai Pratap Singh, Ram Naresh Agnihotri, Ashutosh Tandon, Neelkanth Tiwari and Mahendra Singh.

Mohsin Raza, who was the lone Muslim minister in the previous state government, was replaced by Danish Azad Ansari.

Swami Prasad Maurya, Dharam Singh Saini and Dara Singh Chauhan, who were ministers in the previous BJP government, had quit the BJP just ahead of the Assembly polls and contested from the Opposition Samajwadi Party.

Ministers Mukut Bihari Verma and Swati Singh were not given ticket by the BJP in the just-concluded Assembly polls.

with PTI inputs