BHOPAL: Four months after the BJP’s longest serving Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was replaced by Dr Mohan Yadav, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dropped enough hints about big Delhi plans for the former MP CM.
While addressing a poll rally in central MP’s Harda district on Wednesday, where he was accompanied on the stage by BJP candidate from Vidisha seat Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the PM recounted his long association with Chouhan.
“We’ve (Modi and Chouhan) been working together since BJP organisation days, when he was the MP CM, I was the Gujarat CM and we worked together. When he was a Lok Sabha member, I was the party’s national general secretary. Now I want to take him again with me (to Delhi),” said Modi, while dropping enough hints about something big in the making for Chouhan in Delhi after the LS polls.
Modi’s clear-cut indication of something big being in store for Chouhan in Delhi, has triggered a strong buzz among the ruling party circles in MP, about the former MP CM being given some prime assignment in the union cabinet, if the NDA led by Modi returns to power at the centre.
The ongoing buzz is also about agriculture or panchayati raj-rural development being among the two key portfolios any of which could be assigned to Chouhan in case of Modi 3.0 regime at the centre.
Another section in the party believes that though the prime possibility is of Chouhan getting key portfolio, if Modi returns to power for the third consecutive power, possibility of the ex-MP CM and former state BJP chief even getting a major responsibility in the national BJP organization too cannot be ruled out.
Importantly, another senior BJP leader from Madhya Pradesh Narendra Singh Tomar was the agriculture minister in the Modi 2.0 regime for over four years. But after getting elected to the MP Vidhan Sabha in December 2023 and then becoming the State Assembly Speaker in Bhopal, the union agriculture ministry is being headed by ex Jharkhand CM Arjun Munda.
With MP being among the leading agrarian states, Chouhan could be a frontrunner for agriculture minister’s job, if he wins from Vidisha seat for the sixth time and the Modi regime gets another chance at the centre.
Importantly, Chouhan (the longest serving BJP CM anywhere in the country till date) is known to be possessing a pro-farmer image and is popular as farmers son among farmers across the state, despite the killing of five farmers in police firing during chief ministerial tenure in western MP’s Mandsaur district during 2017.
After being the MP CM for 16 years, Chouhan made way for Yadav as the new MP CM in December 2023. Since then, he has been waiting for some big assignment from the party.