Modi's trusted aide may become UP Deputy CM as Yogi to rejig cabinet

Former IAS officer and BJP MLC Arvind Kumar Sharma, who was considered to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, could join the Uttar Pradesh ministry as deputy chief minister.

Sharma, a Gujarat cadre ex-bureaucrat, had joined the BJP in January this year, days before the state legislative council polls. He was later nominated as a BJP candidate in the poll.

The speculations about Sharma being inducted in the cabinet as Dy CM gained grounds after he met chief minister Yogi Adityanath a couple of days ago.

The meeting between Sharma and Adityanath came soon after Modi heaped praise on the former for "efficiently" managing Covid 19 in Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of the Prime Minister.

''Sharma has a long experience of working in different departments....he has been a very capable officer....whether he is inducted in the cabinet or not is something which can be decided by the party leadership only,'' remarked a senior UP BJP leader.

Sharma was secretary in the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) at the centre and had taken voluntary retirement before joining the BJP.

Sharma, who hailed from UP's Mau district had worked with Modi, when the latter was the chief minister of Gujarat. He was later shifted to the centre, when Modi became prime minister in 2014.

It was, however, not clear if one of the two Dy CMs - Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma - would be dropped or UP would have three deputy CMs.

According to the sources in the BJP, the UP cabinet could soon be reshuffled, inducting some new faces and dropping some old ones, especially those, who were found to be 'inactive' during the peak of the Covid 19 pandemic in the state.

Sources said that the ministers in whose areas the saffron party-backed nominees lost in the recently concluded panchayat polls could also be shown the door.