UP Assembly Elections: Akhilesh Yadav's ministers fall like ninepins

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Lucknow: The saffron tsunami which swept Uttar Pradesh also blew away almost three-fourths of ministers in the Akhilesh Yadav government who had entered electoral fray.

Veteran Samajwadi Party leader and Assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey also failed to hold ground in his traditional Itwa seat, losing the seat to the BJP and slipping to the third spot.

Notable cabinet colleagues of outgoing Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav who lost at the hustings included his close confidants Arvind Singh Gope and Abhishek Misra from Ramnagar and Lucknow North respectively.

Akhilesh's decision to stay put with his tainted minister Gayatri Prajapati and re-nominate him from Amethi also failed to find favour with the electorate.

Prajapati, considered close to SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, warmed his way into the Akhilesh camp in the midst of family feud and got the ticket despite the new equation denying tickets to most of those who were close to the earlier order in the party.

Despite rape charges against him and the Supreme Court intervening in the case, the party stuck with Prajapati from Amethi but the electorate which did not show any liking for him.

Prajapati, who went underground a few days after polling, was attacked by BJP leaders all through the campaigning especially by BJP chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Supreme Court also ordered a CBI probe into illegal mining in the mines department headed by Prajapati.

Among others who could not cut ice with the electorate are cabinet ministers Ravidas Mehrotra (Lucknow central), Shivakant Ojha (Raniganj),  Ziyauddin Rizvi (Sikanderpur), Awdhesh Prasad (Milkipur), Vinod Kumar alias Pandit Singh (Tarabganj), Rammurti Verma (Akbarpur), Shankhlal Majhi (Jalalpur), Ramkaran Arya (Mahadeva), Brahmhashanker Tripathi (Kushinagar), Kamal Akhtar (Hasanpur), Riyaz Ahmed (Pilibhit) and Shahid Manzoor (Kithore).

The ministers of state (independent charge) who failed to make it to the Assembly are Aruna Kori (Rasoolabad), Farid Mehfooz Kidwai (Kursi), Moolchand Chauhan (Dhampur)and Madan Chauhan (Garh Mukteshwar).

Ministers of state who faced defeat at the hustings are Shiv Pratap Yadav (Gaisari), Rajiv Kumar (Dariyabad), Surendra Patel (Sevapuri), Kailash Chaurasia (Mirzapur), Rampal Rajwanshi (Mishrikh), Radhey Shyam Singh (Hata), Rammurti Singh Verma (Dadraul), Vijay Bahadur Pal (Tirwa), Tej Narain alias Pawan Pandey (Ayodhya), Banshidhar Baudh (Balha), Hemraj Verma (Berkheda) and Sudhir Kumar Rawat (Safipur).

But, the cabinet ministers who survived this BJP onslaught included controversial minister Azam Khan (Rampur), Ram Govind Chaudhary (Bansdeeh), Parasnath Yadav (Malhani ) Durga Prasad Yadav (Sadar), Yasir Shah (Matera ), Mehboob Ali (Amroha ), Iqbal Mehmood (Sambhal), Raghuraj Pratap Singh (Kunda), Manoj Kumar Pandey (Uchahar) and Narendra Singh Verma (Mehmodabad).

For Azam Khan, it was icing on the cake as his son Abdullah Azam (SP) too won from Suar.

Four ministers of state also got a thumbs up from the electorate. They are Nitin Agarwal (Hardoi), Shailendra Yadav (Shahganj), Jagdish Sonekar (Machchlishahr) and Omkar Singh Yadav (Sahaswan).