Chouhan had been sworn in only on March 23, the night before the Prime Minister announced the national shutdown. (File photo)
Almost 100 days after the BJP toppled the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will have a full cabinet on Thursday.
Chouhan had been sworn in only on March 23, the night before the Prime Minister announced the national shutdown. After working alone until April 21, he inducted five ministers, including two loyal to former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose rebellion brought down the previous congressional-led government.
In the past few days, there have been frantic discussions in New Delhi and Bhopal over who will go to the Cabinet because the party had to walk a tightrope to try to adjust BJP leaders, including those who had been ministers in the past. as supporters of Scindia, they will soon face partial elections.
Twenty-two MLAs in Congress, including six ministers in the former Kamal Nath government, resigned and then joined the BJP earlier this year. While two of his loyalists, Tulsi Silawat and Govind Rajput, are already ministers, Scindia is known to have wanted 10 others to be housed.
Most of the seats for the partial elections are in the state’s Gwalior-Chambal region, where the former Union minister has influence. Congress did well in the region in the 2018 Assembly elections.
Chouhan struggled to convince the BJP high command to accommodate the high-ranking MLAs that were ministers in their previous three terms between 2005 and 2018, even as the party sought newer, more energetic faces. Three BJP MJs who were ministers in the past are known to be unlikely to make it to his cabinet this time.
The prime minister, who spent two days in Delhi before returning to Bhopal on Tuesday, hinted that he had some compromises to make. “Jab bhi manthan hota hai amrit nikalta hai, vish a Shiv pee jate hai (each shake produces nectar, Lord Shiv consumes the poison),” he told the media on Wednesday.
Digging into Chouhan, former CM and Pradesh Congressional Committee Chairman Kamal Nath tweeted: “The turmoil lasted so long that it only produced poison. The poison will have to be drunk daily from now on because there will be shakes every day. ”
Nath likely indicated that the government will have a hard time because Chouhan will have to deal with unhappy BJP applicants who will not be able to land ministerial positions.
Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel, who was sworn in as parliamentary governor on Wednesday, will administer the oath of office to new ministers on Thursday. The current state governor, Lalji Tandon, is receiving treatment at a private hospital in Lucknow.
She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.