Lucknow: The arm-twisting, it seems, has worked. Nishad party, a political outfit with support base among fishermen community in Uttar Pradesh has cracked a big deal with ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP). The BJP has agreed to accommodate Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad in the proposed cabinet expansion and a seat in the state’s upper house. However, the Nishad Party has demanded 70 assembly seats from BJP to contest in the coming elections. At present Nishad Party is a party of BJP alliance in UP and has a lone member of parliament. For the last few months, Nishad Party has been showing arrogance with BJP over several issues related to the fishermen community including reservation and representation in the government.
On Thursday, a high-level meeting at Delhi was held between UP CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP national president JP Nadda, state president Swatantra Deo Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, organizing Secretary Suneel Bansal and Sanjay Nishad to resolve this issue. In the meeting, it was decided to accommodate Nishad party in the UP cabinet. However, no decision could be taken regarding seat-sharing in the coming assembly polls.
According to a senior BJP leader of UP, since Sanjay Nishad is not a member in any of the house in UP, the party has agreed to send him to the legislative council under the nominated quota. In July four seats of the nominated category in the UP legislative council had fallen vacant. Sanjay Nishad is likely to be accommodated in the UP cabinet in the coming days. Besides Nishad, the BJP leaders in Delhi also discussed the name of three candidates who will be sent to the legislative council. The party has made up its mind on former state BJP president Laxmikant Bajpai and former Congress leader Jitin Prasada. Jitin had joined BJP last month. Besides one seat in the legislative council may be given to any leader belonging to most backward community.
After meeting in Delhi, Sanjay Nishad admitted that he might get a ministerial berth in UP very soon. However, decision regarding 70 seats in coming assembly polls is yet to be taken. He said that very soon a meeting with the senior BJP leaders would be held in this matter. During the meeting with BJP top leaders, he demanded reservation for the fishermen community in UP and withdrawal of cases against them. These cases were lodged during the political movement of his community in the previous regime.
The high-level meeting at Delhi also discussed on the name of probables who could be inducted in the UP cabinet in the proposed expansion. According to leaders in BJP, Laxmikant Bajpai, Jitin Prasada, Sanjay Nishad and senior leader Vidya Sagar Sonkar could be among few who may get a berth in the cabinet. However, the decision about cabinet expansion and its timing has been left to chief minister Yogi Adityanath. He will take a final call in this regard.
