New Delhi: From teaching in Saraswati Shishu Mandir, run by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s education wing Vidya Bharti at the remote Raikala village in Keonjhar to being picked as the chief minister of the first BJP government in Odisha, 52-year-old Mohan Charan Majhi has come a long way.
A four-term MLA from Santhal tribe, Majhi won from the Keonjhar assembly seat by a margin of 11,577 seats defeating Biju Janata Dal’s Mina Majhi. Prior to Majhi, Odisha had a tribal chief minister in Giridhar Gamang (February-December 1999).
Majhi will take oath Wednesday along with his two deputies — K.V. Singh Deo and Pravati Parida — who were also selected by the Odisha BJP legislative party Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with several BJP bigwigs including Union cabinet ministers will attend the oath taking ceremony of the first ever BJP government in the eastern state.
#WATCH | Mohan Charan Majhi elected as the Leader of BJP Legislative Party in Odisha. He will be the new CM of the state. pic.twitter.com/tDMART1zN7
— ANI (@ANI) June 11, 2024
BJP sprung a surprise in Odisha, where assembly and Lok Sabha elections were held simultaneously, by winning 78 out of the 147 assembly seats, ending the 25-year rule of the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in the eastern state.
In the run up to the BJP legislative party meeting Tuesday, several names were doing the round for the CM post. These included BJP MPs Suresh Pujari, Aparajita Sarangi and K.V. Singh Deo among others. But, it was Majhi who was unanimously elected to the top post.
Also Read: How BJP engineered downfall of Naveen Patnaik after 2014 & broke BJD’s stranglehold on Odisha
RSS background, worked in tribal areas
Odisha BJP leaders who know Majhi said that the tribal leader faced a lot of hardship while growing up in the remote Raikala village in Keonjhar. Son of a watchman, Majhi was determined to complete his education.
After he graduated from Chandra Sekhar College in Keonjhar’s Champua in 1993, Majhi took up a teacher’s job in Saraswati Shishu Mandir for a couple of years before entering politics. “He has a RSS background and has been associated with the organisation for a long time. In Odisha’s political circles, he is a known face since the last 20 years,” former Odisha BJP chief Samir Mohanty told ThePrint over phone from Bhubaneswar.
Majhi made his first political foray when he fought as an Independent in the 1995 assembly elections from Keonjhar and bagged 3,221 votes to gain fourth position. His first political success came in 1997, when he was elected sarpanch of his native village Raikala. Alongside, he was appointed the state secretary of the BJP’s adivasi morcha (tribal front).
The CM-designate was 26-year-old when he won his first assembly election in 2000 in which the BJP and the BJD were alliance partners. Between 2005 and 2009, he was the government chief deputy whip in the Odisha assembly. Majhi had won three elections since then after the alliance broke. He was the opposition chief whip between 2019 and 2024.
Though he does not have any administrative experience, Majhi has been a member of the Standing Committee of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the Orissa Reservation of Vacancies in Post and Services (For SC and ST) Act, 1975 and the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee in the state from 2022 to 2024.
Rose from grassroots
Majhi’s colleagues said that he has proved himself as a good legislator. “He might not have been in the government but having served as chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, he has knowledge of governance. His performance, both when he was part of the alliance government and in the opposition, was good,” Odisha BJP spokesperson Sajjan Sharma told ThePrint.
His wife, Priyanka Marndi, is an ayurvedic doctor and the couple has two school-going children.
Mohanty said that Majhi, a teetotaller, has a clean track record. “He is the perfect choice to lead the first ever BJP government in the state,” he added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)