Mohan Yadav in Madhya Pradesh: BJP's another surprise chief minister pick

Party sends signals to Yadav community in UP, Bihar ahead of Lok Sabha polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday picked Mohan Yadav as its chief minister-designate in Madhya Pradesh, ignoring the claims of incumbent Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the longest-serving CM of the state.

Chouhan proposed Yadav’s name to lead the party in the state legislature at the meeting of the BJP’s winning candidates in Bhopal in the afternoon. Yadav will have two deputy CMs -- Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla -- and former Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar will be the Assembly Speaker.

Yadav shot into prominence in 2021 when, as the state’s higher education minister, he announced the Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas would be an elective (optional) course for first-year graduate students studying philosophy.

With the Lok Sabha elections five months away, the BJP picking a Yadav to helm its Madhya Pradesh government sends a strong signal to the Yadav community of Uttar Pradesh, which neighbours MP and Bihar, that the BJP had their interest at heart.

In UP and Bihar, most of the Yadav community supports the Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), respectively, while the BJP has successfully courted several non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Since 2003, all three of the BJP’s CMs in MP, and now the current CM-designate, have been OBCs, namely Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur, Chouhan, and Yadav.

In MP, the BJP followed its Uttar Pradesh formula of appointing two deputies to Yadav, a template implemented in Chhattisgarh on Sunday. In MP, the BJP picked a Dalit and a Brahmin as Yadav’s deputies — Devda and Shukla, respectively. Devda won from Mandsaur’s Malharganj seat and Shukla from Rewa.

On Sunday, the BJP elected Vishnu Deo Sai, a tribal, as the CM-designate in Chhattisgarh and announced two deputy CMs, one from OBC, Arun Sao, and another from the general category, Vijay Sharma, a Brahmin. It announced former CM Raman Singh’s name as the Assembly Speaker.

In UP in 2017, the BJP appointed two deputy CMs to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC, and Dinesh Sharma, from the general category. After the 2022 UP Assembly polls, Adityanath continued as the CM, Maurya as one of the deputies, and Brajesh Pathak, a Brahmin, replaced Dinesh Sharma.

The BJP’s effort to strike the caste balance in picking its CMs and their deputy CMs with an eye on the Lok Sabha polls and affect a generational shift in the leadership in the Hindi heartland states could get repeated in Rajasthan, where the party is likely to announce the next CM’s name on Tuesday, and potentially neutralises the Congress’ demand for a caste census.

After the BJP legislators elected him, the BJP legislature party leader, Mohan Yadav, the CM-designate, met Governor Mangubhai Patel to stake a claim to form the government. He was accompanied by Chouhan, BJP state unit chief V D Sharma, and the three central observers. Chouhan had reached the Raj Bhavan to submit his resignation.

Mohan Yadav, 58, is a third-term legislator from the Ujjain South seat, winning from the constituency in 2013, 2018, and 2023. According to his profile posted on the MP Assembly’s website, he has a string of educational qualifications, including a Bachelor of Science, LLB, MA in Political Science, Master of Business Administration, and a doctorate. In the outgoing Chouhan government, Yadav was the higher education minister since March 2020.

As an upcoming politician, he spent long years in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliated students’ union, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). He was elected the students’ union president of Madhav Science College in 1984, and was active first in the ABVP and later in the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. During his political career, Yadav has headed the Ujjain Development Authority (2004 to 2010) and the Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation (2011-13). He currently heads the MP wrestling federation.

Before the BJP’s legislators met in the afternoon, supporters of Chouhan and Prahlad Singh Patel, a five-term Lok Sabha member from Damoh, shouted slogans for their respective leaders. BJP sources said Patel and Chouhan share an uneasy equation, and the party couldn’t risk making the latter the CM with LS polls around the corner.

NEW BEGINNING

Fifty-eight-year-old Mohan Yadav is a third-term legislator from Ujjain South

Incumbent Shivraj Singh Chouhan proposed Yadav's name

Yadav will have two deputy CMs -- Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla

Former Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar will be the Assembly Speaker