BHOPAL: Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Friday said his government would recommend the creation of Pichhore as a separate district to the State Reorganisation Commission, offering fresh backing to a demand that people in northern Madhya Pradesh have raised for years.
He made the announcement at a state-level Mahila Sammelan held at Chhatrasal Stadium in Pichhore, in Shivpuri district. The crowd chanted slogans demanding district status throughout the event. Yadav said the government would provide whatever support was needed.
Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is the Guna-Shivpuri MP, also backed the demand. He described it as a matter close to the heart of everyone in the region and said they all wanted Pichhore to become a district.
Pichhore MLA Pritam Lodhi, a first-time legislator from the BJP, linked the demand to politics. He said district status would permanently secure the party’s hold on the seat and also help it expand its reach into neighbouring constituencies, including some in Lalitpur, Etawah and Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh. He indirectly referred to the upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh and the 2028 Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls. He also praised local party workers for working without expecting personal gain.
Scindia and Lodhi both recalled that a similar promise had been made at the same stadium during the 2023 Assembly election campaign.
In August 2023, at a Ladli Behna event in Pichhore, then Chief Minister and now Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Pichhore would become a district if BJP candidate Pritam Lodhi won. Lodhi won, but the promise remains unfulfilled more than three years later.
On Friday, Yadav also said Rs 1,831 crore had been transferred to the bank accounts of more than 1.24 crore beneficiaries of the Ladli Behna Scheme.
Pichhore is currently part of Shivpuri district and is more than 100 km from the district headquarters. Lodhi won the seat for the BJP in 2023, ending a gap of 33 years. The seat had been won six times by Congress veteran KP Singh “Kakkaju”.
If the district is created, reports suggest it would include the towns of Pichhore, Khaniyadana and Bamorkalan, part of Shivpuri’s Karera tehsil, and some parts of neighbouring Datia district.