Ujjain MLA Mohan Yadav is BJP's surprise choice for Madhya Pradesh CM post; end of Shiv'raj'

Bhopal/New Delhi: The BJP sprang a major surprise after a week-long spate of suspense by announcing Mohan Yadav as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh. Yadav’s name was announced after the party’s MLAs unanimously supported him during the legislative party meeting at Bhopal on Monday. Notably, former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan proposed his name.

Party veteran Narendra Singh Tomar will be the Speaker and the party has also named two deputy CMs – Rajendra Shukla and Jagdish Devda – whose names were announced by party president V D Sharma.

Later in the evening, the newly elected CM reached the house of Governor Mangubhai C Patel to stake claim, accompanied by Chouhan, Sharma, Tomar and Kailash Vijayvargiya, besides the three observers sent in by the party’s central command.

Prior to the declaration, the three observers – Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, BJP OBC Morcha president Dr K Laxman and BJP national secretary Asha Lakra – convened a meeting of newly elected MLAs to finalise the name of the new CM.

Former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan offered his resignation and congratulated the newly-elected Yadav, who thanked the party’s senior leaders. “I am a small worker of the party and I thank all of you, the state leadership and central leadership. With your love and support I will try to fulfil my responsibilities”, he posted on X.

While several names were doing the rounds for the post, including that of Union minister Prahlad Patel, Vijayvargiya, Tomar, the BJP picked an OBC face considered close to the RSS for the top job.

Yadav, who was elected from the Ujjain South constituency, is a three-time MLA and has been a minister since 2020—he had held the education portfolio. Party insiders said that the appointment will be central to the party’s OBC push.

With the impending Lok Sabha elections, the move is likely to help the party in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and even Haryana, which have a sizable population of the Yadav community. In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP has consistently won the support of the community.

A Union minister who did not wish to be named said that with this decision, Prime Minister Narendra Modi now has a strong counter to Rahul Gandhi’s demand for a caste census.

“In the Bihar caste census, the OBCs account for a huge chunk of the population, and now we have an OBC chief minister in a key state,” the minister, who hails from the South, said.

Yadav’s appointment is also made keeping in mind the various factions and age groups. At 58 years, Yadav signals a generational shift in a party where the primary contenders were all above 60 years of age.

The BJP retained power in MP with a historic win of 163 out of 230 seats in the state assembly elections, with a vote share of 48.55 per cent. The party’s decision to field 14 candidates above the age of 70, with the oldest being 80 (Tomar), paid off with 11 of them winning.