Jagdish Devda, a Dalit, and Rajendra Shukla, a Brahmin from the Vindhya region, will take over as deputy CMs, while Narendra Tomar, who quit as Union agriculture minister to contest the state polls, will be the speaker of the assembly as part of the clutch of choices that stamps central leadership’s paramountcy over satraps.
The decision came as a surprise to many and caught Yadav unawares. Seated in the third row behind Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar and other central observers besides Chouhan, Tomar, state party chief V D Sharma and Kailash Vijayvargiya, the three-time MLA from Ujjain (South), who served as higher education minister in the previous government, had no inkling of what the leadership had in store for him. “When the central observers announced his name, Yadav could not believe his ears and could barely find words for a few minutes,” said one of the legislators present there.
Watch: New Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav, showcases spectacular swordplay in an old video that has now gone viral
Chouhan, who was not projected as the CM candidate despite having been in office since 2005, excluding a 15-month interregnum, had never appeared to be a certainty. The massive victory appeared to have reprieved him but the decision on Tuesday conveyed by the Haryana CM indicates that the assessment – that the huge numbers only masked the fatigue factor with the incumbent and did not eliminate it – appeared to have prevailed. The choice of a Yadav, a leader with an RSS and ABVP background belonging to the Malwa region, also appeared to be guided by the party’s considerations to burnish its credentials among the numerically preponderant OBCs in the face of a ‘caste count’ pitch by opponents.
While Chouhan is also an OBC, his replacement can help the party with fellow Yadavs in politically crucial Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as well as Haryana. BJP has struggled to gain the support of the community in UP and Bihar, where they form the mainstay of Samajwadi Party and RJD, respectively. That Mohan Yadav, head of the state Olympic and wrestling associations, is taking over as the sole CM from the community is an index of BJP’s stubborn desire to make inroads among them.
Yadav, who is skilled in brandishing swords in both hands, holds sway in the temple city of Ujjain. As minister, Yadav made the ‘Ramcharitmanas’ an optional subject in colleges in 2021, and had announced that degrees would be given to students only after they plant a sapling.
Watch Breaking: Mohan Yadav to replace Shivraj Singh Chouhan as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister
