Swami Prasad Maurya, who recently stirred a controversy by his intemperate remarks on Ramcharitmanas, has been rewarded by being appointed as general secretary of the Samajwadi Party.
Shivpal Singh Yadav, uncle of party chief Akhilesh Yadav, and veteran leader Mohammad Azam Khan are also among the 14 national general secretaries appointed by the party.
The SP declared its 62-member national executive on Sunday with Akhilesh Yadav as its national president.
The uncle-nephew duo of Shivpal and Akhilesh, who parted ways in 2016, came together during the Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-election in December last year following the death of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The SP on Sunday released the list of 62 national executive members on its Twitter handle.
In 2016, Shivpal Yadav, the then SP's Uttar Pradesh unit president, had an open feud with the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and was sacked from Uttar Pradesh cabinet. Sidelined in the party, Shivpal Yadav had formed the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) in 2018 and contested against SP from Firozabad in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. After their show of unity in Mainpuri, there was speculation that Shivpal Yadav will be formally rehabilitated in the party.
Swami Prasad Maurya, a former minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, switched from the Bharatiya Janata Party to the Samajwadi Party before the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and lost from Fazilnagar constituency in Deoria district. He was, however, accommodated by the SP and was elected to the UP Legislative Council.
The other national general secretaries are Ravi Prakash Verma, Balram Yadav, Vishwambhar Prasad Nishad, Awadhesh Prasad, Indrajeet Saroj, Ramjilal Suman, Lalji Verma, Ram Achal Rajbhar, J Antony, Harendra Malik and Neeraj Chowdhury.
While Akhilesh Yadav will continue to hold the post of national president, Kiranmoy Nanda will be national vice-president and Ram Gopal Yadav will continue as national principal general secretary.
Sudip Ranjan Sen will be the party treasurer, while there will be 19 national secretaries, including Madhu Gupta, Kamal Akhtar, Rajendra Chaudhary, Rajiv Rai and Abhishek Mishra. Jaya Bachchan, Abu Asim Azmi, Ram Govind Chaudhary, Pawan Pandey, Lilawati Kushwaha, Ujjwal Raman Singh, Akshay Yadav, Tej Pratap Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav and Raj Kumar Mishra are among the party's national executive members.
