Will Adityanath have a No 2? Deputy CM’s loss prompts question

Yogi Adityanath is set for a record second term as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh following his party’s handsome win. But in one of the biggest upsets, the party’s No 2 in the state, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, was shown the door by the electorate. He was among the 11 ministers who lost the election. Adityanath’s second deputy, Dinesh Sharma, did not contest.

Now the question being asked is: Who, if anyone, will be Adityanath’s deputy?

Despite a high-voltage campaign, Maurya lost in Sirathu by 7,337 votes, to Pallavi Patel of the Apna Dal (Kamerawadi), an ally of the Samajwadi Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union ministers Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari, BJP chief JP Nadda, and even Pallavi Patel’s sister Patel, who is a BJP ally, had canvassed on his behalf, but the voters were not convinced.

As votes were being counted on Thursday and initial rounds showed him in the lead, Maurya had tweeted: “Public is winning, hooliganism is losing.”

Maurya can still take the legislative council route, but the party is yet to clarify whether he will stay deputy chief minister. Adityanath was a member of the legislative council until he contested his first assembly election this time and won from the Gorakhpur Urban.

Other BJP ministers to lose the election were: Suresh Rana, Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar, Rajendra Pratap Singh alias Moti Singh, Chandrika Prasad Upadhyay, Anand Swaroop Shukla, Upendra Tiwari, Ranvendra Singh Dhunni, Lakhan Singh Rajput, Satish Chandra Dwivedi, and Sangeeta Balwant.