VARANASI: The Purvanchal (eastern UP region) has been given a fair share in the 47-member council of ministers led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath , who himself belongs to the region. As many as 10 MLAs from eight districts of east UP have been given berth in the council of ministers. Of this, five are cabinet ministers , two ministers of state with independent charge and three ministers of state.Purvanchal comprises 17 districts -- Azamgarh, Ballia, Basti, Chandauli, Deoria, Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Jaunpur, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Mau, Mirzapur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Siddharth Nagar, Sonbhadra and Varanasi.However, Yogi's team has has no representation from eight districts -- Azamgarh, Basti, Chandauli, Maharajganj, Mirzapur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sant Ravidas Nagar and Sonbhadra. While Varanasi and Deoria have been given two ministerial berths each, one MLA each from Mau, Kushinagar, Ghazipur, Ballia, Jaunpur and Siddharth Nagar has been included in the council of ministers.There are 101 assembly constituencies in these 17 districts, where BJP and its allies scored outstandingly capturing 77 seats. While BJP won 69 seats, its alliance partners AD(S) and SBSP won five and three seats respectively. Though BJP won eight out of nine seats in Gorakhpur district, none of the MLAs was inducted in the team of Yogi, who represents Gorakhpur parliamentary seat in Lok Sabha.The five cabinet ministers are: Surya Pratap Shahi from Pathardeva (Deoria), Swami Prasad Maurya from Padrauna (Kushinagar), Dara Singh Chauhan from Madhuban (Mau), Jay Pratap Singh from Bansi (Siddharth Nagar) and Om Prakash Rajbhar of SBSP from Zahoorabad (Ghazipur).Anil Rajbhar from Sivpur (Varanasi) and Upendra Tiwari from Phephna (Ballia) have been made ministers of state (independent charge), while Neelkanth Tiwari from Varanasi South, Girish Yadav from Jaunpur and Jay Prakash Nishad from Rudrapur (Deoria) have been made ministers of state.Like Gorakhpur, no ministerial berth was given to any MLA from Basti and Sant Kabir Nagar, where BJP made a clean sweep winning all eight seats of the two districts. All five seats in Siddharth Nagar district were won by the BJP (4) and its ally AD-S (1).BJP and SBSP bagged six out of seven seats in Kushinagar, four out of five seats in Maharajganj and six out of seven in Deoria district. All eight seats in Mirzapur (4) and Sonbhadra (4) were won by the BJP (6) and AD-S (2), while BJP and SBSP bagged five seats out of seven in Ghazipur district.The three seats out of four in Mau, three out of four in Chandauli and two out of three seats in Sant Ravidas Nagar district also went to BJP. Out of nine seats, BJP won four and AD (S) won one seat in Jaunpur district. Azamgarh is the only district in Purvanchal, where BJP could win just one seat out of 10. The SP, which had won nine seats in 2012, lost four seats this time."We are happy that the Purvanchal has been given importance in the council of ministers for giving such a huge mandate to BJP. We are expecting some more ministers from this region in future," said Brijesh Pandey, assistant professor of sociology at Agrasen Women PG College."The importance of this region could be understood with the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent three days in Varanasi during the last leg of poll campaign," he said. "People are hoping for good days in this part of the state, which has been lagging behind in the race of development," he added."It is a balanced and energetic team of ministers committed to bring a new model of development in the state. The people have given mandate for development, and we expect an alround development involving all sections of the society," said the president of Kashi Khsetra of BJP Laxman Acharya.

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