Uttar Pradesh gets 10 central ministers, eastern UP gets lion's share

NDA's second term in office Thursday saw eastern Uttar Pradesh bagging the lion share of the ministerial berths with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself leading the pack.

Modi won from Varanasi while Rajnath Singh, a senior minister who joined the prime minister's team as number two in the Union Cabinet, represents Lucknow in the Lok Sabha.

UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey, who was re-elected from Chandauli, also in eastern UP, joined Modi's team at the Centre as well. Smriti Irani who won from Amethi is also a part of Modi 2.0.

Thursday's government formation saw UP, which elects the maximum number of 80 MPs, getting 10 representatives in the government.

While five of them are Cabinet ministers -- Modi, Rajnath Singh, Smriti Irani, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Mahendra Nath Pandey, two are MoS (independent charge) -- Santosh Gangwar and Hardeep Singh Puri, a Rajya Sabha member from the state.

Others are MoS -- Gen (retd) V K Singh, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Sanjeev Balyan.

However, those who could not make it this time are: ManeKa Gandhi, who is likely to become the Pro-tem Speaker, Mahesh Sharma, Shiv Pratap Shukla and Satyapal Singh.

Anupriya Patel, whose Apna Dal (Sonelal) bagged two seats to takle NDA's tally to 64 in the state was conspicuous by her absence in the list of ministers this time, though she was part of the previous government.

Some other faces of the last government who failed to make it are Manoj Sinha who lost from Ghazipur, Uma Bharti and Kalraj Mishra who did not contest. Krishna Raj was not given a ticket.

An analysis of the newly appointed ministers shows that no particular caste or community was given preference.

While Modi is a backward, Rajnath Singh is a Thakur and Mahendra Nath Pandey is a Brahmin. Naqvi is the lone Muslim face in the Cabinet.