Om Prakash Rajbhar withdraws threat to quit UP cabinet after Yogi Adityanath assures to meet demands

Lucknow: An Uttar Pradesh minister on Monday threatened to resign if his demand for transferring the Ghazipur district magistrate (DM) was not met immediately, but soon backtracked after being mollified by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Om Prakash Rajbhar said he met the chief minister on his return from New Delhi and was assured by him that his concerns would be taken into consideration. “I had raised 19 issues. The chief minister accepted 17 of them. In view of his assurance, I withdraw my resignation threat. I also withdraw my plan to sit on dharna on Tuesday,” Rajbhar, who holds the backward and handicapped welfare department portfolio, said. Asked about the remaining two demands, he said the chief minister has promised to look into them at a later stage. Rajbhar, who had spoken to the chief minister, had earlier rued that nothing had been done. [caption id=“attachment_3342386” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. PTI[/caption] “If my demand is not met, I will resign from the government. What is the use of remaining in the government if a minister is not heard,” he had said earlier in the day. Rajbhar is national president of the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBJP), a BJP ally that won four assembly seats in the 403-member House. He had also announced that he would sit on dharna in Ghazipur on Tuesday to press for his demand for District Magistrate Sanjay Kumar Khatri’s transfer. Khatri, he alleged, was not paying heed to the problems of the people. “We will be sitting on dharna in Ghazipur on Tuesday for removal of the DM,” Rajbhar told. The MLA from Zahoorabad in Ghazipur said he had taken up 19 issues with the DM so far, but none had been resolved. “I have been complaining against the DM… If he is not removed, I will sit on dharna…On 25 June, I met Uttar Pradesh BJP secretary Sunil Bansal and on 27 June called on the chief minister to take up the matter. However, the DM is yet to be removed,” Rajbhar had said. People’s representatives, he said, are accountable to those who voted them to power. “People are angry that their work is not getting done even after the Cabinet minister’s request,” he added.