Akhilesh sacks 36 leaders, Maya dissolves all units

Tremors of the humiliating defeat at the hands of the BJP in the just concluded parliamentary election were felt in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday with both Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party taking strong “corrective steps”.

While Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav sacked 36 leaders enjoying the status of Ministers of State with lal batti (red becon), BSP supremo Mayawati dissolved all the organisational units and hinted at important changes in the party organisation.

Akhilesh Yadav had given lal battis to 80  SP leaders who could not be accommodated in the state Government when the party came to power in 2012. Some of these leaders were made chairman of state-run boards or corporations while a few others were made advisors to the Chief Minister.

With the party facing an embarrassing defeat in the just-concluded lok Sabha election, the Government decided to sack 36 of these leaders enjoying ‘lal battis’.

CM has sacked 36 politicians who were given a status of Minister of State. The order has already been issued in this context,” a senior leader said.

Five of these sacked Ministers of State are from the minority community.

Akhilesh confirmed the news in an impromptu Press conference but ruled out his resignation — a demand made by many BJP leaders.

“Party’s national president Mulayam Singh Yadavji is reviewing the election results. He will take the final call,” he said.

Sources in the Government said that others, including a few ministers, could also face the axe. Yadav Senior has called a meeting of ministers on Wednesday.

Prominent among those who have been removed are Narendra Bhati and Surendra Mohan Agarwal, who lost in Gautam Buddha Nagar and Kanpur parliamentary constituencies respectively, RlD turncoat Anuradha Chaudhary, traders’ body leader Sandeep Bansal, former Mayor of Agra, Anjula Mahaur, Surabhi Shukla, Ranjana Bajpai, KC Pandey, Kamlesh Pathak, Ashu Malik, Satish Dixit and Manoj Rai.

Those from the minority community include Anis Mansori, Mohammad Abbas, Iqbal Ali, Haji Iqram and Kamruddin, the sources added.

Former student leaders Raja Chaturvedi and Ram Singh Ranahave also been sacked.

On the other hand, BSP supremo Mayawati dissolved all the district, assembly and state level organisations of the party in the wake of the party’s debacle in the lok Sabha election and announced to reconstitute them very soon. She also sacked all six zonal coordinators in the state including Jugal Kishore, Munkad Ali, Dr Baliram and Gaya Charan.

In the meeting of the national party leaders here on Tuesday, Mayawati tried to restore the morale of the party cadre and asked them not to feel demoralised.

“loss and victory are two sides of the same coin. BJP got the majority by misleading people. There was division of votes. The best part is that the Dalits supported the BSP and if other communities like Muslims and upper castes had voted for party we would have got a decisive vote share,” she said.

While asking the BSP workers and leaders to work more hard, Mayawati said the defeat of the party was not because of any mandate against the BSP but because of polarisation of votes.

BSP could not win a single lok Sabha seat in UP or any other state but its vote share in UP has been around 19.6 per cent.