BHOPAL: The coronavirus may well have put paid to independent MLA Surendra Singh Shera Bhaiya’s ministerial aspirations. Shera Bhaiya, who represents the Burhanpur constituency in the Vidhan Sabha, has been quarantined at his home in Burhanpur for 14 days. That means he won’t be able to travel to Bhopal in the first week of next month, when chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is likely to expand his team.
The MLA, who had promptly switched loyalties to the BJP after Kamal Nath put in his papers, was home-quarantined on Tuesday after a close friend of his tested positive for corona infection. The friend, who is a municipal councillor, is in a hospital.
“Shera Bhaiya and all his family members have been quarantined for a period of 14 days,” Burhanpur CMHO Vikram Singh Verma said.
Shera Bhaiya is one of the four Independent members of the Vidhan Sabha and was among the legislators who had backed the Kamal Nath-led Congress government for 15 months. He and another independent MLA, Susner legislator Rana Vikram Singh, had sided with the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government on the floor of the assembly during the trust vote last month.
Shera Bhaiya had vanquished BJP heavyweight Archana Chitnis in the elections. He was hopeful of getting a ministerial assignment in the Kamal Nath government but that didn’t happen. Despite that, he along with Congress MLAs had stayed put at resorts in Jaipur, after the revolt by Jyotiraditya Scindia loyalists had brought the Kamal Nath government to the brink of collapse.
After the fall of the Nath government, Shera backed the Shivraj government during the trust vote in the Vidhan Sabha. He was hopeful that he would get a ministerial berth in the new government. But Chouhan disappointed him and many other aspirants by obliging only four gentlemen and a lady with ministerial berths.
With the CM likely to expand the council of ministers in the first week of May, Shera’s hopes were rekindled. However, this time, corona has played spoilsport.
