After days of suspense, former Union minister Vishnu Deo Sai has been selected as the new Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh by the BJP leadership. He has served as the state president of BJP from 2020-22. He was the union minister of state for steel in NDA-1. Sai has won from the Kunkuri Assembly seat in the 2023 Chhattisgarh elections.

The decision comes after a key meeting of the BJP’s newly-elected 54 MLAs in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur was held today. Three party’s three observers – Union ministers Arjun Munda and Sarbananda Sonowal, and party general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam were present at the meeting today.

Former Chief Minister of the state and BJP leader Raman Singh congratulated the new CM.

“I have full confidence that under your leadership, we all will be successful in bringing progressive changes in the state by fulfilling the promises of BJP’s Sankalp Patra (Modi’s Guarantee) with full dedication and under the double engine government of BJP, Chhattisgarh will develop at double speed,” Singh wrote on X in Hindi.

In the recently-held state assembly elections, the BJP won 54 of the 90 seats and the Congress 35. The Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) managed to win one seat.