New Delhi: After ushering in a generational change in the selection of the Chhattisgarh chief minister, the BJP picked up three first-time MLAs, including a woman, a former district collector and a personal assistant-turned-MLA, among nine faces in the Vishnu Deo Sai cabinet on Friday.
With the swearing-in of these nine MLAs as ministers at the Raj Bhavan, the strength of the Sai-led cabinet stands at 12. CM Sai and his deputies Arun Sao and Vijay Sharma were sworn in on 13 December. There is now one slot left in the Chhattisgarh cabinet.
Brijmohan Agrawal, Ramvichar Netam, Dayaldas Baghel, Kedar Kashyap, Lakhanlal Dewangan, Shyam Bihari Jaiswal, O.P. Choudhary, Tank Ram Verma and Laxmi Rajwade are the ministers inducted in Friday’s Chhattisgarh cabinet expansion.
The surprising omissions include the likes of Rajesh Munat, Amar Agrawal, Renuka Singh and Dharamlal Kaushik.
VIDEO | Nine ministers inducted in Chhattisgarh state cabinet in Raipur. pic.twitter.com/qB7cMNqFcT
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) December 22, 2023
Laxmi Rajwade, 31, is the youngest member as well as the only woman face in the cabinet. The Bhatgaon legislator started her political journey in 2011 becoming the treasurer of Surajpur mandal and then the mandal president.
Nine years later, she became a district panchayat member and then went on to become the women’s morcha chief of Surajpur district. She has also dabbled in the business of poultry farming and brick kiln, side-by-side as a public representative.
Significantly, the BJP chose her instead of former Union minister Renuka Singh Saruta, tribal leader and party vice-president Lata Usendi, or Pathalgaon MLA Gomati Sai.
Rajwade said that she never expected to find a place in the cabinet expansion. “When the CM called me yesterday (Thursday), I was taken aback as I had won for the first time. There were many several more experienced leaders but the party posted faith in me. I will try to fulfill the aspiration of people through Modi guarantees,” the minister told ThePrint.
Another interesting selection is Tanka Ram Verma who served as personal assistant of Maharashtra governor Ramesh Bais and Chhattisgarh ministers Kedar Kashyap and Dayaram Baghel. The OBC leader from Kurmi community worked once in government service and worked with Bais, a seven-time MP and former Union minister in the Vajpayee government.
Later, Verma went on to work with Kashyap, who served as a minister during the years of Raman Singh’s rule.
“It can happen only in the BJP. I have worked with Bais and Kashyap. The party picked me as district president even without any experience as booth president or mandal president. It again promoted me as a district panchayat vice-president and then gave me a ticket to become an MLA and now a minister. This is a reward to the common worker of the party,” Verma told ThePrint.
O.P. Choudhary is a former 2005 batch IAS officer who got the prime minister excellence award for his work in education sector and establishing Atal Bihari Education City in Naxal-affected Dantewada.
Choudhary resigned from service in 2018 on the insistence of Raman Singh and made electoral debut at Kharsia in Raigarh district but lost in the assembly polls. The BJP then accommodated the former Raipur district collector in its organisational setup as a general secretary. Choudhary won from Raigarh this time.
Shyam Bihari Jaiswal, a two-time MLA, was elected as a panchayat vice-president in 2010. The BJP leader has a rice mill. This year, Jaiswal was in the news after Congress MLA Vinay Jaiswal accused him of illegally occupying more than 100 acres of land belonging to tribals.
Ramvichar Netam, Brijmohan Agrawal, Dayaldas Baghel, Kedar Kashyap are the established names in the Chhattisgarh cabinet.
Netam, a former Rajya Sabha MP from 2016 to 2022, first entered the assembly in 1990 and continued to win in 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2008. Eight-time MLA Agrawal was considered number two in the Raman Singh cabinet. Baghel, too, was a minister in the Raman Singh cabinet.
Also Read: BJP’s social engineering in Chhattisgarh: Tribal CM with OBC & Brahmin deputies
Striking caste & regional balance
The BJP has tried to balance regional and caste equations in Friday’s cabinet expansion. With Sarjuga accounting for 14 BJP seats, Sai and three others — Netam, Rajwade and Jaiswal — represent the region in this cabinet
Bilaspur has three representatives — Deputy CM Sao, Choudhary, and Devangan. The BJP won 10 seats in this region.
Agrawal and Verma are from Raipur region, while Kashyap represents Bastar region. On Thursday, Kiran Singh Deo, a first-time MLA from Jagdalpur, was made the party state president to give more representation to Bastar.
In caste balancing, the presence of six OBC faces — Sao, Choudhary, Rajwade, Verma, Devangan and Jaiswal — in the cabinet shows the importance that the BJP puts on the section that comprises 44 percent of Chhattisgarh’s population.
Sai, Netam and Kashyap are from Scheduled Tribe, Baghel from Scheduled Caste and Agrawal and Dharma are from general categories.
“Both aspects of balance and caste factors have been considered while new faces too have been inducted for generation change. Since the state has a large OBC population, there are six ministers from this section. The chief minister is from tribal and the state president from general caste. We gave representation to all dominant sections plus experienced faces,” a senior BJP leader told ThePrint.
(Edited by Tony Rai)