Former Union Minister Prahlad Patel and BJP National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya were among 28 MLAs inducted into the Madhya Pradesh government on Monday afternoon, with 18 of them holding cabinet slots, according to news agency PTI.
The remaining ten will serve as junior ministers or Ministers of State.
The new cabinet includes just five women, after the BJP claimed victory mostly on a women’s empowerment platform and ex-Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’ initiative.
As many as 11 members of the new cabinet are from the OBC, or Other Backward Classes, category, highlighting the BJP’s constant efforts to balance caste/class arithmetic ahead of the election next year.
In choosing Mohan Yadav as Chief Minister, the BJP was largely perceived to be doing precisely that.
Governor Mangubha C Patel gave the oath, as he did to Mr Yadav and his two deputies, Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla, all of whom are Scheduled Caste and Brahmin.
Nirmala Bhuria, Narayan Kushwaha, and Nagar Singh Chouhan were among those sworn in today. Ms Bhuria was formerly the junior Health Minister, while Mr Kushwaha was previously the junior Home Minister.
Vijay Shah, Karan Singh Verma, Rakesh Singh, Vishvas Sarang, Rakesh Shukla, Chaitanya Kashyap, Inder Singh Parmar, and Uday Pratap Singh were also sworn in.
Pradhuman Singh Tomar, the former Energy Minister, Tulsi Ram Silawat, the ex-junior Water Resources Minister, Govind Singh Rajput, the former Revenue and Transport Minister, and Aidal Singh Kansana were also appointed. All four were among the 22 who backed ex-Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia’s resignation from the party in 2020, precipitating the fall of Kamal Nath’s administration.
According to the news agency PTI, all of those identified above will occupy cabinet positions.
Krishna Gaur, Dharmendra Bhav Lodhi, Dilip Jaiswal, Gautam Tetwal, Lakhan Patel, and Narayan Singh Pawar are junior ministers (although with autonomous charge). Narendra Shivaji Patel, Pratima Bagri, Dilip Ahirwar, and Radha Singh are MLAs who have taken oath as Ministers of State.
Those named represent a mix of the old and new, as the BJP also tries to balance the aspirations of its newer faces (particularly those who crossed over from the Congress three years ago) and the expectations of its more veteran state leaders, including those who served with Mr Chouhan.
The Council of Ministers can have a maximum of 35 members, including the Chief Minister.
The cabinet appointments are the first tangible moves toward building a state government to succeed the Shivraj Singh Chouhan administration since election results were revealed 22 days ago. Mr Yadav told NDTV that “there is no hurry… it (the new cabinet) will be formed soon.”
Madhya Pradesh’s new ministers were appointed following long discussions at the highest levels of the BJP’s national leadership, including party chief JP Nadda.
The BJP secured a landslide victory in last month’s election, taking 163 of the 230 seats in the Hindi heartland state, defying most exit poll predictions of a close contest with the Congress, which took only 66 seats, down from 114 five years earlier. The saffron party also routed its rival in two other states that voted then – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, both of which the Congress had ruled.
Stay Update with FELA NEWS!
Source: NDTV
