Not selecting any of the top leaders in the state who are contemporaries in politics, going for a younger OBC face who will be the only Yadav chief minister in the country presently and comes from the land of the holy Mahakaleshwar temple, and giving a message to workers that anyone from the rank and file can become the CM — the BJP has sent multiple messages through its selection of Mohan Yadav in Madhya Pradesh.
The three-time MLA from the Ujjain (South) seat also has the blessings of outgoing chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan who is said to have proposed Yadav’s name to the party leadership as among those who can replace him. Yadav, 58, is among the most educated MLAs in the state, holding a PhD, and was the higher education minister in the Shivraj Chouhan government. The Ujjain (South) seat is also home to the Jyotirlinga Mahakaleshwar temple where the grand Mahakal corridor was made last year and is a major centre of religion and Hinduism in Madhya Pradesh. Yadav also has been seen as close to the RSS in the state. Not many, however, had anticipated his meteoric rise.
“All of us have supported Mohan Yadav’s name. All names that were speculated were only in the media, they were not names by the party. Shivraj Singh Chouhan recommended Yadav’s name as CM and we all supported it. Shivraj is a senior leader and I am sure the party will utilise his ability suitably,” senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya told News18. “This is new India and new Madhya Pradesh, so young leaders have to come ahead…under Narendra Modi, the vision is to make a stronger country and so the MP has to play an important role in that. So new people have been given a chance.” He also said that it was a good decision by the party to make a senior leader like Narendra Singh Tomar the speaker, to bring a balance as a young leader has been made the chief minister.
The BJP was faced with the tough task of having senior leaders and contemporaries as MLAs in the state now — Shivraj Chouhan, Prahlad Patel, Narendra Singh Tomar, Kailash Vijayvargiya, and Rakesh Singh. All of them had begun their political career around the same time and choosing one of them as the CM could have been a tricky choice while the party wanted to move on from Chouhan who had been chief minister for 18 years. With the move to make Mohan Yadav the CM, the BJP has avoided that problematic area. Further, a confidante of Chouhan has been chosen as the CM, much like in Chhattisgarh where Raman Singh’s confidante Vishnu Deo Sai has been made the chief minister. The party’s most senior leader in the state, Narendra Singh Tomar, has been made the speaker of the new assembly.
Mohan Yadav will be the only Yadav CM in the country presently and, with this move, the BJP is also sending a message far and wide in the country that it is the party that cares for the OBCs. The BJP has given Chhattisgarh its first tribal chief minister in Sai. Kailash Vijayvargiya, however, told News18 that the selection of Mohan Yadav should not be seen just from the prism of caste as he is a capable leader. This leaves a big question on what will be the political future of Chouhan, who served as the chief minister for 18 years. Will the Centre accommodate him as a union minister or does a Raj Bhawan await him? Time will tell.
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