3 Months To Go For Polls, BJP Expands Madhya Pradesh Cabinet

Barely three months before the assembly polls, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan expanded his cabinet by inducting three ministers on Saturday morning. The move is being seen by experts as an attempt to maintain a caste and regional balance. 

The three MLAs who have been sworn in are former minister Rajendra Shukla, state backward classes commission chief Gaurishankar Bisen, and first-time MLA and former chief minister Uma Bharti's nephew Rahul Lodhi. 

Mr Shukla and Mr Bisen took oath as cabinet ministers and Mr Lodhi was inducted as a minister of state. The strength of the cabinet has now gone from 31 to 34. 

The Congress has mocked the cabinet expansion and some leaders pointed out that the new inductees will get hardly 1,000 hours to work as ministers.

The cabinet expansion was preceded by speculation and at least two meetings between Mr Chouhan and Governor Mangubhai Patel. The chief minister met the governor for 15 minutes at 9 pm on Tuesday and then for 10 minutes at 10 pm on Friday. It was decided at Friday's meeting that the cabinet expansion ceremony would be held at 8.45 am on Saturday.

Governor Mangubhai Patel administered the oath of office as ministers to the three legislators at the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal around 8.50 am.  

Former minister Rajendra Shukla is a Brahmin leader and four-time MLA from Rewa in the Vindhya region. The BJP had dominated the region in the 2018 assembly polls, winning 24 out of 30 seats. 

Gaurishankar Bisen, 71, is a seven-time MLA from Balaghat in the Mahakoshal region, who is also the chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Backward Classes Welfare Commission. In 2018, the Congress had secured 24 seats in the Mahakoshal region, compared to the BJP's 13, and the ruling party feels Mr Bisen's inclusion in the cabinet would help it establish a stronger foothold there. 

46-year-old Rahul Lodhi is a first-time MLA from Khargapur in Tikamgarh district of the  Bundelkhand region. He is the nephew of former chief minister Uma Bharti.

Experts said the expansion is an attempt to achieve a better caste and region balance in the cabinet. Of the 31 ministers earlier, 11 were from the Malwa-Nimar region, 9 from Gwalior-Chambal, four from Bundelkhand, three from Vindhya, three from central Madhya Pradesh and one from Mahakaushal.

Mocking the BJP for carrying out the expansion so close to the elections, state Congress chief Kamal Nath posted on X, formerly Twitter, in Hindi, "When the term is coming to an end and the government is about to fall, the cabinet is being expanded in Madhya Pradesh! The BJP government, which is used to singing a welcome song at the time of farewell, is now sure to lose even if it changes the entire cabinet. This is not a cabinet expansion, it is the expansion of the friendship of corruption."