NEW DELHI: Speculation about a UP cabinet reshuffle has been building for months. The Yogi government has six vacant minister positions and a 2027 election to plan for.
But cabinet seats are only one lever of political management. There is a much bigger one — and right now, it is sitting idle.
Before the 2022 elections, BJP filled the chairmanships and memberships of UP’s commissions and corporations with intent. The Backward Classes Commission, the SC/ST Commission, the housing board — each appointment chosen to reward a sidelined cadre worker, court a fragile community, or accommodate a leader without a Cabinet berth.
Before 2024, BJP left them frozen. Roughly 100 political posts went unfilled. An RSS internal survey later concluded that the party’s grassroots had been ignored. Booth-level mobilisation collapsed. Extremely Backward Classes swung away by ten percentage points.
Ahead of 2027 elections, UP’s Cabinet reshuffle conversation misses an equally important power-sharing lever—the commissions and corporations that delivered for the BJP in 2022, and whose neglect cost it in 2024.
When Sohan Lal Shrimali was named vice-chairman of the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Backward Classes Commission in late August 2024, the announcement barely registered in political coverage.
Shrimali had been positioning himself to contest the Majhawan by-election (later held in October 2024); his appointment kept him within the fold and cleared the field for BJP candidate Suchismita Maurya. The BJP won that seat. The appointment had cost nothing and bought something specific.
This is the instrument the BJP has been underusing ahead of the 2027 Assembly election.
Speculation about a Cabinet reshuffle in UP has been building for months. The back-to-back meetings between BJP state president Pankaj Choudhary and the party’s central leadership have sharpened that speculation further.
Given the BJP’s track record of pre-election cabinet reshuffles, UP is very likely to see one, though it is more likely to be an expansion than a wholesale reshuffle.
Cabinet reshuffles serve two political purposes: reducing anti-incumbency and recalibrating caste and geographical representation — both of which matter greatly in a state as vast and demographically complex as UP.
The existing Cabinet, however, already appears reasonably balanced. Of the 54 ministers, 10 belong to the Scheduled Castes (SC), while ‘upper caste’ and OBC ministers are roughly equal in number, at around 20 each.
Among ‘upper castes’, Thakurs are represented by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath (accounting for his caste at birth before accepting sannyas) and Tourism Minister Jayveer Singh. Brahmins are represented at the highest level by Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak, IT and Electronics Minister Sunil Kumar Sharma, and Higher Education Minister Yogendra Upadhyay. Vaishyas are represented by Industrial Development Minister Nand Gopal Gupta “Nandi.”
Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya is the Cabinet face of non-Yadav OBCs. That broader grouping is further represented through Kurmi leaders Swatantra Dev Singh and Rakesh Sachan, Lodh leader Dharmpal Singh, Jat leader Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary, and alliance partners Sanjay Nishad and Om Prakash Rajbhar, who represent the Nishad and Rajbhar communities respectively.
Scheduled Caste representation spans several sub-groups: Baby Rani Maurya and Anil Kumar are Jatavs, Dinesh Khatik is Khatik, and Asim Arun is Pasi. Danish Azad Ansari serves as the Cabinet’s Pasmanda Muslim face.
The expansion, when it comes, will most likely fill the six vacant positions between the current Cabinet and its constitutional ceiling of 60.
