BJP leader Mohan Yadav is the next Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, while Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla will serve as his deputies in the new state government. Shukla is a five-time MLA, while Devda belongs to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category and won the 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls from the Malhargarh seat.
An oath-taking ceremony will take place at 11.30 am on Wednesday at the Lal Parade Ground in Bhopal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and chief ministers of the BJP-ruled states are expected to attend the event, PTI reported.
Shukla is a strong Brahmin face in the Vindhya Pradesh region. Here are five facts about the new Deputy CM of Madhya Pradesh:
1. Born on August 3, 1964, Shukla comes from an engineering background. He held the president post of the student union at the Government Engineering College in 1986.
2. Shukla contested the Assembly polls from the Rewa seat for the first time in 1998 but lost by a thin margin of over 1,000 votes to rival Independent candidate Pushpraj Singh. However, he defeated Singh in the 2003 state elections and has remained undefeated since. This election year, he won the seat by a margin of 21,339 votes.
3. In the past few years, Shukla has emerged as a strong Brahmin face of the party in Madhya Pradesh's Vindhya Pradesh region, which was once considered a stronghold of the Congress party. In the 2023 Assembly polls, the saffron party defeated the grand old party in 25 of the 30 seats of the region.
4. Shukla has held several ministry portfolios, including public health engineering, industry, and Energy among others in the Madhya Pradesh government. He is known for the development projects he carried out in Rewa, including the airport and the largest solar project.
5. He is married to Sunita Shukla, and they have three children - two daughters and a son.