Bhopal, Dec 13 (PTI) Madhya Pradesh’s newly-appointed Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla is a five-time MLA with an engineering background and a prominent Brahmin leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from the Vindhya region who dabbled in student politics before moving up the ladder and getting organisational roles in the saffron outfit.
Mohan Yadav, the BJP legislature party leader and MLA from Ujjain South, was sworn-in as the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh at a grand ceremony at the Lal Parade Ground here on Wednesday.
Shukla, a Brahmin, and another deputy CM, Jagdish Devda, a Dalit, were also administered oath of office by Governor Mangubhai Patel.
Shukla, a civil engineer by training, was among three ministers who were inducted into the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet just a few months ahead of the November 2023 assembly elections, which saw the BJP posting a resounding victory and retaining power.
The 59-year-old politician, like Yadav and Devda, started his career as a student leader when he won the election for president’s post of student union of the Rewa Engineering College in 1986 and then entered full-time party politics.
In the last month’s election, he won from Rewa, the nerve centre of the politically crucial Vindhya region, for a fifth term in the assembly by defeating Congress candidate Rajendra Sharma by more than 21,000 votes.
After holding various posts in the BJP, Shukla was first elected as an MLA in 2003 from Rewa and became a minister of state when the saffron party formed its government after ousting the Congress from power.
He went on to win four more elections from Rewa (2008, 2013, 2018 and 2023).
Shukla held ministerial berths in 2008 and 2013 in the Chouhan government, but was not given a place in the ministry in 2020 when the BJP regained power after the collapse of the Kamal Nath-led Congress government. However, he was back in the government in August 2023.
During his different ministerial stints, Shukla has handled various portfolios, including housing, environment, energy, public relations, public health engineering and parliamentary affairs, among others. PTI ADU RSY
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