Bhopal:
Former Union Minister Prahlad Patel and BJP National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya were among 28 sworn into the Madhya Pradesh cabinet Monday afternoon, 18 of whom will hold cabinet berths, news agency PTI said. The other 10 will be junior ministers, or Ministers of State.
There are only five women in new cabinet, after the BJP claimed a win largely on a women’s empowerment platform and ex-Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s ‘Ladli Behna Yojana’ scheme.
Governor Mangubha C Patel administered the oath as he had to Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and his two deputies, Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla, the BJP’s Scheduled Caste and Brahmin faces.
Among the others sworn in were Nirmala Bhuria, Narayan Singh Kushwaha, and Nagar Singh Chouhan. Ms Bhuria was earlier the junior Health Minister and Mr Kushwaha the junior Home Minister. Tribal leader Sampatiya Uikey was also added to the new cabinet.
Also added were Pradyumna Singh Tomar, who was previously the Energy Minister; Tulsi Ram Silawat, the former junior Water Resources Minister; and Aidal Singh Kansana. All three were among the 22 lawmakers who supported ex-Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia when he quit the Congress in 2020, triggering the fall of ex-Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s government.
The additions to the cabinet – the first concrete steps towards establishing a state government to follow the Shivraj Singh Chouhan administration since election results were announced 22 days ago – come after Mr Yadav told The Hindkeshari”there is no hurry… it (the new cabinet) will be formed soon”.
Madhya Pradesh’s new ministers were chosen after extensive talks at the upper echelons of the BJP’s central leadership, including party boss JP Nadda.
The BJP claimed a landslide win in last month’s election – winning 163 of the Hindi heartland state’s 230 seats – shrugging off most exit polls’ prediction of a tight race with the Congress, which claimed just 66 seats compared to the 114 it won five years ago. The saffron party also routed its rival in two other states that voted then – Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, both of which the Congress had ruled.