Former UP DGP Brij Lal has been appointed as the chairman of the State Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The appointment is seen as a calculated measure to pacify and neutralize the opponents within and outside the Yogi Adityanath on the so-called Dalit issue. Once close to BSP chief Mayawati - the position that helped him wrangle prime postings, including the top post in police, during the BSP rule, Brij Lal joined the BJP in January 2015 after retirement in search of better pastures much against the general belief that he might join the BSP. Brij Lal was posted as ADG (Law and Order) soon after the BSP came to power in 2007 and was later elevated to the post of state DGP. The Election Commission (EC) had, however, removed him ahead of the 2012 Assembly polls following complaints from opposition parties. The BJP had then welcomed the EC's move. In another decision to counter Mayawati and other mushrooming Dalit forums, CM Adityanath has also appointed Lalji Prasad Nirmal as chairman of Uttar Pradesh Scheduled Castes Finance Development Corporation. Nirmal is the president of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Mahasabha and had felicitated Adityanath as 'Dalit Mitra' on Ambedkar's birth anniversary celebrations in Lucknow last week. Several senior functionaries of the Mahasabha had opposed Nirmal's decision to felicitate Adityanath. However, Nirmal remained adamant and had claimed that his government had done maximum work for Dalits in the state. Nirmal had said that Dalit officers were sidelined in the Samajwadi Party government but got prime postings in Adityanath's rule.