Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Power Minister A.K. Sharma, a former bureaucrat who once worked closely with Narendra Modi in Gujarat, has been under fire for months over power cuts in the state—and more recently, after videos of him confronting department officials went viral.
Sharma now finds himself at the centre of a fresh row after the Uttar Pradesh Power Employees Joint Committee (Vidyut Karamchari Sanyukt Sangharsh Samiti) on Monday urged Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to take charge of the department, accusing the minister of backing out of agreements made with employees and of creating chaos within the department.
Already critical of the government’s plans to privatise distribution companies, the Samiti also passed a resolution urging the chief minister to abandon the idea of privatising the energy department.
It said the state’s energy corporations, which had set records for maximum electricity supply in the country, were being unnecessarily defamed.
“People sitting in top positions in the energy department are calling the distribution corporations unsuccessful while discharging their constitutional responsibilities. The main reason behind this is privatisation, they said,” said the resolution.
Similarly, another employee association, the UP Power Consumer Council, echoed these concerns.
Its president, Awadhesh Kumar Verma, accused the minister of being out of touch with ground realities. “The minister’s statements and social media posts are completely opposite. While the minister was busy highlighting the power department’s achievements online, he faced the real situation only after meeting the public,” he told the media on Monday.
The row follows a video showing Sharma unable to respond to angry residents complaining about power outages that went viral last week. Later in another video, he was seen angrily confronting his department’s officials at a meeting in Lucknow.
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Sharma’s sharp response
In a sharply worded post on his official X handle on Monday, Sharma strongly criticised employees’ union leaders and accused them of launching a smear campaign.
“Among those who have taken a contract against Energy Minister Shri A.K. Sharma, there are also some disruptive elements disguised as electricity employees,” said the post.
“Some electricity employee leaders have been wandering around troubled for quite some time because Energy Minister ji does not bow before them. These are the same people who are tarnishing the reputation of the electricity department. They are undermining the day-and-night hard work and efforts of most electricity officers and employees.”
ऊर्जा मंत्री श्री ए के शर्मा की सुपारी लेने वालों में विद्युत कर्मचारी के वेश में कुछ अराजक तत्व भी हैं …
कुछ विद्युत कर्मचारी नेता काफ़ी दिनों से परेशान घूम रहे हैं क्योंकि उनके सामने ऊर्जा मंत्री जी झुकते नहीं हैं।
ये वही लोग हैं जिनकी वजह से बिजली विभाग बदनाम हो रहा…
— AK Sharma Office (@AKSharmaOffice) July 28, 2025
The post added that the unions had launched four strikes during Sharma’s three-year term, the first just three days after he took charge. Eventually, the High Court had to step in and stop their “externally-instigated strikes”, it added.
“If problems exist in other departments too, why aren’t strikes happening there? Aren’t there unions and issues in other departments as well?”
The statement also alleged that these same individuals came to the mnister’s official residence a few days ago under the pretext of protesting privatisation.
According to the post, they engaged in “indecent behavior for six hours and used uncivilised language”, not only towards the minister but also his family. Yet, Sharma reportedly offered them refreshments and allowed them to wait to meet him.
The minister’s office said in the post that big decisions like privatisation weren’t made unilaterally. It said that Sharma doesn’t even transfer a junior engineer on his own and most decisions are made independently by Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited’s management and the state government.
“This entire decision is currently being taken by a task force chaired by the chief secretary. All actions are being carried out under its guidance. You are fully aware that the formal government order for privatisation was issued only with the high-level approval of the state government,” the minister’s official handle said.
According to sources in the UP government, Sharma’s relationship with the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has been strained.
On Friday, when a video of Sharma confronting officials went viral, Yogi Adityanath called a high-level power department meeting. However, Sharma did not attend the meeting in person at the CMO and joined it online instead, saying he was travelling.
Sharma joined the BJP in January 2021 and was made a UP cabinet minister in March 2022, when Yogi Adityanath took office as the UP chief minister for his second term.
Seen as the Prime Minister’s Office man in the UP government, Sharma and Yogi have hardly been seen in the same frame at official meetings. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, however, has never publicly commented on Sharma’s working style.
Since taking charge as power minister, Sharma has frequently clashed with employee unions over operational decisions and policy.
Sources close to Sharma say that he has decided to take a tough stand against the officials. In a social media post, he warned, “Officials should not take me lightly. If I release an arrow like Lord Ram, then no one from Delhi to Rashtrapati Bhavan will be able to protect.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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