Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh new CMs to take oath today, PM Modi will be present
The new chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Mohan Yadav and Vishnu Deo Sai will take oath on Wednesday in the presence of PM Modi and other senior BJP leaders.
After the suspense over the chief ministers’ names ended with BJP announcing their unusual CM choices, now there are speculations over the cabinet berths. This will likely end with today’s swearing-in events at the two states. Rajasthan chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma will take oath on December 15.
Madhya Pradesh’s new CM Mohan Yadav
58-year-old Mohan Yadav is a three-time MLA and a prominent OBC leader. He as the new chief minister surprised many as all calculations over the CM probables went awry. Mohan Yadav is close to RSS, was first elected as an MLA in 2013 from Ujjain South and retained the constituency in 2018 and 2023. An LLB, MBA and PhD-holder, Mohan Yadav was the higher education minister of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cabinet.
Mohan Yadav will have two deputies — Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla. Narendra Singh Tomar will be Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan who led the BJP to win in Madhya Pradesh with a landslide majority said he is confident that under the leadership of the new chief minister, the state will progress. “I would rather die than go and ask something for myself. I won’t go to Delhi,” the outgoing chief minister said.
Chhattisgarh new chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai
59-year-old Vishnu Deo Sai will become the first tribal chief minister of Chhattisgarh. A former Union minister, former MP, Vishnu Deo Sai as the CM was also a surprise from the BJP in the state that it wrested from the Congress. Though Sai has years of experience in electoral politics and also that of working at the grassroots level, he was not seen as a frontrunner as he lacked a public profile.
Vijay Sharma and Arun Sao will serve as the deputies to Vishnu Deo Sai. Former chief minister Raman Singh will be the Speaker.
The party took a week to finalise the names of the CMs and the deputy CMs as it put forward a new line of leaders jettisoning the expected names that were doing the rounds.