MP: A month after poll results, portfolio of ministers still awaited

Bhopal, Dec 29 (IANS) Almost a month after assembly election results were announced on December 3, the wait for the portfolio of the cabinet ministers of Madhya Pradesh is still awaited.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 163 out of 230 assembly seats, and elevated three-time MLA Mohan Yadav as Chief Minister on December 11. He along with his deputies took oath on December 13.

Two weeks later, 28 MLAs were sworn in as ministers in Mohan Yadav's cabinet, which consists of 18 council of ministers and 10 state ministers on December 25.

However, wait for the portfolio of new council of ministers is getting longer in Madhya Pradesh. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav is visiting Delhi frequently to meet the BJP top leadership.

Yadav visited Delhi again on Thursday evening - the fourth time in last one week. Yadav's frequent visit to Delhi is being judged or speculated differently as many claimed some heavyweights racing to top ministries.

BJP leaders here in Madhya Pradesh were of the view that the decision of allocating portfolio to the council ministers likely to be made by end of this month and from January 1, the state government would be fully operational.

Until then, Yadav is making all efforts to get everything streamlined for the smooth running of the administration.

Some top bureaucrats have been reshuffled and Yadav has met every senior politician of his party, even those who lost the election.

Well-aware of the fact that his governance would be compared with that of his predecessor Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who headed the state for over 16 years, Yadav is trying to win the confidence of his party colleagues.

However, not much is happening in state politics right now and all key decisions are being made by the BJP’s central leadership. The bustle in Madhya Pradesh’s politics is likely to begin after the portfolio allocation.

The race for acquiring top ministries like home and urban development has already begun among the heavyweight leaders in the state.

Madhya Pradesh’s new cabinet is a combination of young and senior leaders. Of them 17 are first-timers, including stalwarts like the BJP’s National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, ex-Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel and former state President Rakesh Singh.

Significantly, out of 31, only nine Ministers from former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Cabinet have been retained, including the Chief Minister and his two deputies Shukla and Devda.

Apart from the combination of new and old leaders, the BJP has tried to balance castes and regions in its cabinet selection.

Notably, to make it easier for Yadav to gain control, the BJP’s top leadership has clipped Chouhan’s wings and very few of his loyalists have been inducted into the cabinet.

Some former Ministers who had strong influence in the state’s politics, like Gopal Bhargava, Bhupendra Singh, Jayant Malaiya and some others, have been dropped.

The new CM, whose political journey began with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has the backing of Modi and Shah. However, it remains to be seen if he can dominate his cabinet colleagues, especially the senior-most and influential leaders and how governance takes place in the future.