28 netas with criminal past in Team Akhilesh

LUCKNOW: Akhilesh Yadav took over the reins of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday when he was sworn in as chief minister with a team of 47 ministers, most of them Mulayam loyalists, and among them the controversial Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya who has been booked under POTA and has several cases pending against him.

As the team didn’t quite inspire confidence in his promise of clean politics, many wondered if Akhilesh has had a free hand in picking his ministry. Only one member of the so-called ‘Team Akhilesh’ from the polls — former IIM-Ahmedabad professor Abhishek Mishra — has been picked as a minister of state.

The ministry size is small compared to Mulayam’s jumbo 98-member cabinet, but is much larger than what Akhilesh had hinted. Doubts were being raised on the SP’s intentions to check crime and criminals as 28 out of 47 ministers have criminal cases against them, though a number of these cases could be political in nature.