Mohan Charan Majhi was announced as the 15th chief minister of Odisha on Tuesday evening after a BJP legislature party meeting held in Bhubaneswar. The meeting was attended by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav who were appointed as observers by the party.
Along with Majhi, the first BJP chief minister of the state, KV Singh Deo and Pravati Parida have been appointed as his deputies.
Majhi is a 4-time MLA from the state's Keonjhar assembly constituency, reserved for scheduled tribes. A popular tribal leader, Majhi won the 2024 assembly elections by 11,577 votes against BJD's Meena Majhi. In the 2019 assembly elections, he had a narrow win of 1,124 votes against BJD's Madhaba Sardar.
Before that, Majhi represented the seat twice between 2000 and 2009.
The 53-year-old tribal leader began his political career in 1997 when he was elected village sarpanch.
After winning the 2019 assembly elections, he was appointed as the opposition chief whip in the Odisha Assembly.
After his win in the 2019 elections, Majhi had told in an interview that his hometown Keonjhar is replete with mineral resources but unfortunately, no local residents have really been benefited from them.
He blamed the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government for not creating jobs in the area, lack of infrastructural development and poor healthcare systems. "District Mineral Fund has to be disbursed and utilised properly for a mass uplifting," he had said.
Majhi is revered in the state unit of BJP as a strong organisational leader with firm links with RSS. The usually 'non-controversial' figure had made headlines last year when he allegedly threw uncooked dal (pulses) at the Odisha Assembly speaker's podium, an act for which he was suspended along with BJP leader Mukesh Mahaling.
Majhi had denied the allegations saying that he had brought the pulses with him as a mark of protest against the BJD members use of derogatory words to describe the leader of opposition, but he never threw it at the podium.
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