Madhya Pradesh Assembly Election: In less than three months ahead of the Assembly elections, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday expanded his cabinet by inducting three BJP MLAs as ministers, taking the number to 34. Through the cabinet expansion, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sought to balance the caste and regional equation in the state.
Former minister Rajendra Shukla, a Brahmin leader and four-time MLA from Rewa in the Vindh region, Gaurishankar Bisen, a seven-time legislator from Balaghat in the Mahakoshal region who is also the chairman of the MP Backward Class Commission and first-time MLA from Khargapur in Tikamgarh district of Bundelkhand region Rahul Lodhi took oath as ministers.
State Governor Mangubhai Patel administered the oath of office as ministers to three legislators at the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal around 9 AM.
While Shukla and Bisen took oath as cabinet ministers, Lodhi was sworn-in as minister of state. They are yet to be allotted portfolios, according to a Raj Bhawan official, reports PTI.
Bisen (71) and 46-year-old Lodhi belong to the Other Backward Class (OBC) community, which makes up more than 45 per cent of the population of Madhya Pradesh. Lodhi is the nephew of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Uma Bharti.
The inclusion of Shukla takes the number of ministers from the state’s Vindh region to four, while Bisen’s induction takes this count in Mahakoshal region to two. The induction of Lodhi takes the number of ministers from impoverished Bundelkhand region to five.
Although the names of former MP Minister Jalam Singh, younger brother of Union Minister Prahlad Patel and Lalsingh Arya, who is president of the BJP SC Morcha, were also being speculated to be part of the Cabinet, they could not make it.
The last expansion of the Chouhan cabinet took place in January 2021, months after he returned as the state chief minister for the fourth term.
Even after the expansion carried out on Saturday, there is still room for one more minister in the cabinet going by the convention that the strength of the council of ministers should be 15 per cent of the House. The Madhya Pradesh assembly has 230 members.