Uttar Pradesh gains: Khursheed, Jaiswal, Verma promoted
By IANSWednesday, January 19, 2011
NEW DELHI - As Uttar Pradesh heads for assemby polls next year, three of the state’s Congress leaders - Salman Khursheed, Sriprakash Jaiswal and Beni Prasad Verma - gained in Wednesday’s cabinet reshuffle.
Khursheed, who is a former chief of the party unit in Uttar Pradesh, was promoted to cabinet rank. He is now in-charge of the water resources ministry, besides the minority affairs and corporate affairs portfolios he held earlier.
Jaiswal, who hails from Kanpur, has been promoted to the cabinet rank in the coal ministry itself.
Beni Prasad Verma , a former socialist leader who joined Congress in 2008, was inducted into the union cabinet as a minister of state in charge of steel. Verma, a former close aide of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh, had been a cabinet minister during 1996-98 in charge of the communication ministry.
“The party has projected the leaders with an eye on the polls next year,” an office-bearer of the All India Congress Committee told IANS.
“It will be the battle of UP in 2012. We are readying for it,” he added.
Political analysts say the Congress has set its eyes wider on the votes of Muslims and Other Backward Class (OBC) by upgrading Khursheed and Verma.
“There is a Rahul Gandhi (Congress general secretary) touch in the enhanced importance for the Uttar Pradesh leaders. Rahul is to lead the UP battle next year,” the AICC leader added.
