Bhopal,UPDATED: Aug 27, 2023 15:23 IST
Chouhan was sworn in as chief minister in March 2020 after the Kamal Nath government fell owing to the defection of 22 Congress MLAs to the BJP, in a rebellion led by Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The August 25 expansion is politically significant on many counts. One, it comes a little over two months ahead of assembly elections slated to take place in the state in November. Second, the filling up of cabinet positions wasn’t routine since Congress MLAs who had defected to the BJP had to be accommodated. This accommodating of former Congress MLAs led to a number of BJP stalwarts, especially Chouhan loyalists, being left out of the cabinet and resulted in a regional and caste imbalance. In the 31-member cabinet prior to August 26, 11 are former Congress MLAs who had joined the BJP.
What is the objective of the exercise? Political watchers suggest the cabinet expansion ahead of elections is merely symbolic as the newly inducted ministers will have very little time to deliver by way of work. The model code of conduct is expected to be in force by the first week of October, which means the ministers will barely get a month and a half in office. Two of the three new ministers—Shukla and Bisen—are Chouhan loyalists. Their inclusion points to rewarding of loyalty and correcting the ‘injustice’ to them when they were not included in 2020 due to political compulsions of including the Scindia group. Also, Shukla is from the Vindhya region, where the BJP did very well in the 2018 assembly election. However, the cabinet sworn in 2020 included only one minister from the region. It was later that BJP MLA Girish Gautam was sworn in as legislative assembly speaker in an attempt to correct the imbalance.
Bisen is from Balaghat, located in the Mahakoshal region. By including him, Chouhan has given weightage to loyalty and the Mahakoshal region, which is seen as state Congress chief Kamal Nath’s stronghold. Chouhan, in the past week, also reached out to another loyalist, Rampal Singh, who was appointed chairman of the Antyodyay Committee, a largely ceremonial position but with cabinet rank. Political watchers suggest that by carrying out the expansion, Chouhan wants to give out the message that he’s still boss, even though several Union ministers and BJP leaders have been drafted into the poll campaign by the party.
Lodhi, a second-term MLA from Khargapur in Bundelkhand, is BJP leader Uma Bharti’s nephew. By including him, it appears, Chouhan wants to enlist the support of Bharti and by extension the Lodhi community. The Lodhis are present in substantial numbers in Bundelkhand and the Gwalior-Chambal regions.
There is still one cabinet position left and that is unlikely to be filled up. There was in fact no plan to fill up the four vacant positions, but political exigencies have forced Chouhan’s hand. What remains to be seen is how the remaining senior MLAs left out of the cabinet, such as BJP stalwarts Ajay Vishnoi, Ramesh Mendola and Malini Gaur, react.
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