Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who quit Samajwadi Party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party has been rewarded with a post in the Uttar Pradesh government.
On Tuesday, the Uttar Pradesh government announced the appointment of its state women commission office-bearers where Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's sister-in-law Aparna Yadav also found a seat in the panel.
Wife of Prateek Yadav, who is the step-brother of Akhilesh Yadav, Aparna has been appointed vice chairperson of the women's panel. Governor Anandiben Patel nominated Babita Chauhan as chairperson of the UP Rajya Mahila Aayog, and Aparna Yadav and Charu Chaudhary as vice-chairpersons of the panel for a period of one year or till the UP government's decision.
Aparna had contested the 2017 UP Assembly polls from Lucknow Cantt seat on an SP ticket but remained unsuccessful. She joined the BJP during the 2022 UP assembly polls.
It was speculated that the BJP would give her the ticket from the Lucknow Cantt seat, as she wanted, but after that did not happen, she began working for the party. She was seen as an active member of the party.
After not getting a ticket for the assembly polls, it was speculated that the saffron party might field her for the mayoral election but that too didn't happen. During the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, reports suggested that she might be given a ticket by the party to contest against Dimple Yadav, but she refused to fight the elections against her family members.
The newly-constituted women's panel has 25 members other than the three office-bearers.
Anju Pratap Singh, Priyanka Maurya, Ritu Shahi, Ekata Singh from Lucknow; Poonam Dwivedi and Anita Gupta from Kanpur; Avani Singh, Sangita Jain Annu from Bijnor, Himani Agrawal, Minakshi Bharala, and Manisha Ahlawat from Meerut; Sunita Srivastava from Ballia; Anupama Singh from Jhansi are among the 25 members in the panel.