BHOPAL: The ministers belonging to scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) are in dominating position in the state government, led by Chief Minister Kamal Nath. Most of the departments are headed by ministers belonging to SC/ST categories.
It is after a long time when SC/ST categories ministers have been assigned important departments. Earlier, either during government of ex-CM Digvijaya Singh or Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the ministers of general category held key departments.
In the present state government, the weight of tribal ministers has increased. Amongst ministers belonging to ST category, Bala Bachan has been given home department while Umang Singh has been assigned forest department.
Similarly, amongst the ministers of SC category, Sajjan Singh Verma has public works department (PWD), Tulsiram Silawat has health, Vijaylaxmi Sadho has medical education, Prabhuram Chaudhary has School education and Imarti Devi has been given woman and child development department.
During BJP government, the key departments were headed by Bhupendra Singh, Narottam Mishra, Gopal Bhargava, Rajendra Shukla, Rampal Singh and Jayant Mallaiya. Amongst ministers of ST category, Omprakash Dhurvey headed food and civil supplies and Antar Singh Arya had animal husbandry department. Vijay Shah was the only minister who had important department of school education. During Digvijaya government too, Govind Singh, KP Singh, Ajay Narayan Mushran and Ajay Singh were powerful. The reason behind SC/ST ministers getting key departments is their proximity to Nath and MP Jyotiraditya Scindia.
