"Something Big" Buzz As Shivraj Chouhan Calls Ministers For Sunday Meet

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has called a meeting of his cabinet colleagues tomorrow, sparking a buzz about "something big likely to happen".

BJP sources said Mr Chouhan asked ministers to be in Bhopal for 12 hours tomorrow.

The call for the meeting came hours after Mr Chouhan met with Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the BJP's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for 45 minutes at its headquarters in Nagpur on Wednesday.

"We have been called to the Chief Minister's house. He will meet us one by one from 11 am and will hold the cabinet meeting at 6 pm (on Sunday). We have been told to attend the cabinet meeting. He may discuss some incidents during the Vikas Yatra, or the report card of some low-performing ministers... just as he did with MLAs based on the findings of the party's internal surveys," a BJP minister told NDTV, asking not to be named.

The Vikas Yatras started on February 5 and will end on February 25.

There has been speculation about a refreshed cabinet for the past few months. The Madhya Pradesh assembly election is some nine months away.

"It is not normal for the government to hold a cabinet meeting on Sunday. Anything can happen or it can also turn out to be nothing," another BJP leader told NDTV, requesting anonymity.

The buzz is that there could be a repeated of what happened in Gujarat in September 2021, when former Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and his cabinet quit, opening the way for a completely new Gujarat council of ministers headed by Bhupendra Patel 14 months before the assembly election held towards the end of 2022.