Uttar Pradesh Governor Ram Naik on Monday accepted Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s recommendation and expelled Om Prakash Rajbhar from the post of Minister for Backward Class Welfare & ‘Divyangjan’ Empowerment with immediate effect.
The CM had sent his recommendation to the Governor this morning following which, the Governor sacked Rajbhar from the state Cabinet, Rajbhawan sources said here.
The portfolios held by the dismissed minister have temporarily been handed over to state minister Anil Rajbhar.
The decision to sack Rajbhar was taken after the seventh and last phase of polls ended on Sunday.
Rajbhar, the president of the Suheldeo Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), an ally of the BJP in UP, had gone against it in the elections fielding 39 candidates against the party, including one against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi.
With this, the BJP has snapped all ties with the SBSP in the state Assembly where it has four MLAs.
However, Mr Rajbhar claimed that he had resigned from the state ministry on April 13 but the Chief Minister had not accepted his papers.
Along with the Cabinet Minister post, the government also sacked six SBSP leaders who had been given posts in the public sector units as chairperson and members.
Mr Rajbhar, though welcomed the decision of the CM, but hit back at the BJP government for declining the rights of the backwards in the state.
‘The CM has taken a very good decision. He formed a Social Justice Committee and dumped its report in the dustbin as lacked spare time to implement it. I request him to implement Social Justice Committee’s report as quickly as he took this decision today,” he said.
“I have been punished for fighting for the rights of backwards,” he told reporters after the government’s decision. He also questioned the grounds on which his demand for total prohibition was turned down by the government.
Mr Rajbhar said that BJP forced him to contest on their symbol from Ghosi Lok Sabha seat ‘but the day I refused, I knew my days in the state ministry were numbered.’
“Despite our resignations from the ministry and other public sector posts on April 13, it was not accepted by the BJP to get political mileage in the elections,” he said.
The SBSP president said that his tirade against the BJP would continue and despite him not being in the Ministry, his fight for the cause of the most backwards will not die.
“How can the 27 per cent reservation given to the OBCs be grabbed by just 3 to 4 castes while others are getting nothing even when the total population of the backwards are 54 per cent,” he asked, adding that the schoolchildren of the most backwards were denied their genuine scholarships.
The dispute between the BJP and the SBSP started the day, it joined the government in March 2017. SBSP MLAs openly defied the BJP direction and voted against the party candidate in the Rajya Sabha and Council polls.
Later, from time to time Mr Rajbhar and other party leaders gave statements against the BJP, which annoyed the government which was forced to be quite due to political compulsions.
During the Lok Sabha polls, Mr Rajbhar had predicted that Mayawati would be the next PM and supported the opposition in several constituencies where they are not in the fray.
