Lucknow: A rift is brewing within the Yadav clan in Samajwadi Party. Senior party leader and Mulayam Singh's brother Shivpal Yadav has skipped Uttar Pradesh cabinet expansion on Monday and remained in Etawah instead.
Sources said that there are no major events lined up for Shivpal in Etawah, yet he gave the cabinet expansion a miss.
SP chief Mulayam Singh's aide Balram Yadav was re-inducted into the cabinet. Similarly, Narad Rai, who was also removed from the post, was administered oath as the cabinet minister. Ziyaudin Rizvi, who was not present in the city, could not be administered oath.
Ravidas Mehrotra and Sharda Pratap Shukla were administered oath as Ministers of State (Independent Charge).
Portfolios to the newly inducted ministers would be allocated later.
Earlier in the day, state Minister Manoj Pandey was also dropped from Akhilesh's cabinet.
Earlier this week, Akhilesh had his way after SP called off its merger with Quami Ekta Dal. The event had seen the clear divide between Akhilesh and Shivpal.
This is perhaps the last reshuffle of Akhilesh's council of ministers ahead of the Assembly election in early 2017.
In the last expansion on October 31, 2015, the Chief Minister had inducted five cabinet ministers, eight ministers of state with independent charge and eight ministers of state.
The maximum permissible strength of the ministry, including the chief minister, is 60 in UP.
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