After being functional for almost 100 days without a brimming cabinet, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan's government finally attained its full cabinet on Thursday.
The BJP government who brought down the 15-month-old Kamal Nath led legislature in March, induced 28 new members, including 16 BJP legislators and 12 former Congress legislators. The cabinet includes a dozen loyalists of Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose exit from the Congress in March toppled the Kamal Nath-led regime.
With 28 new ministers including 20 of cabinet rank and eight ministers of state, the Chouhan ministry has attained a strength of 34 now. The Chouhan cabinet still has one vacancy as the ministry's strength, depending on the size of the House, should not exceed 35 as per constitutional norms.
From 14 of 22 loyalists, 10 were given cabinet berth while the rest of them will contest by-polls likely to be held in the state soon for the twenty-four assembly seats vacant in the state assembly.
Tumbling between the loyalists and the senior leaders of the Shivraj's existing cabinet, it was hard for the CM to come up with a final list of cabinet. The party had a tough time balancing between the existing senior leaders and the Scindia camp.
From the Scindia camp, 6 MLAs were a part of Kamal Nath government. These were Govind Singh Rajput, Tulsi Silavat, Pradyuman Singh Tomar, Imarti Devi, Prabhuram Chaudhary and Mahendra Singh Sisodia. All of them have now become cabinet ministers in Shivraj's government. Of these, Govind Singh Rajput and Tulsi Silavat were sworn in on Shivraj's mini cabinet on 21 April.
BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia being felicitated by party workers and his supporters on his arrival at State Hangar, at Raj Bhoj airport in Bhopal on Thursday. | ANI
Apart from these, from 5 more leaders; Rajyavardhan Singh Dattigaon, Brijendra Singh Yadav, Girraj Dandotia, Surendra Dhakad and OPS Bhadauria, Rajyavardhan has become a cabinet minister. The remaining have been made ministers of state.
Scindia has a stronghold in the region. Girraj Dandotia, Aindal Singh Kansana- who is a Shivraj's close aid, Suresh Dhakad, OPS Bhadauria, Mahendra Singh Sisodia, Imarti Devi, Pradyuman Singh Tomar, Bharat Singh Kushwaha have been made ministers from this region.
This is the first time when 3 ministers; Govind Singh Rajput, Gopal Bhargava and Bhupendra Singh are from the same district Sagar. All three are cabinet ministers now. For the first time, no minister has been formed from Jabalpur.
Newly apponted ministers who had ministerial berth in Kamal Nath Cabinet also:
Gopal Bhargava
Yashodhara Raje
Jagdish Devda
Bhupendra Singh
Brijendra Pratap Singh
Vishwas Sarang
Vijay Shah
New Faces in the Cabinet:
Prem Singh Patel
Omprakash Saklecha
Usha Thakur
Arvind Singh Bhadoriya
Mohan Yadav
Hardeep Singh Dang
Rajyavardhan Singh Dattigaon
Basahulal Singh
Aindal Singh Kansana
Bharat Singh Kushwaha
Inder Singh Parmar
Ramkhilawan Patel
Ramkishore Kanware
Scindia Loyalists who were part of Kamal Nath Cabinet:
Imarti Devi
Prabhuram Choudhary
Mahendra Singh Sisodiya
Padyuman Singh Tomar
Brijesh Singh Yadav
Giriraj Dandotiya
Surendra Dhakkad
OPS Bhadouriya
