BHOPAL: In a bizarre development during the mini-expansion of the Mohan Yadav-led council of ministers in Madhya Pradesh on Monday morning, the newly inducted cabinet minister Ramniwas Rawat had to take oath twice in 15 minutes due to an error while reading the text of the oath of office and secrecy.
Rawat, the 64-year-old six-time Congress MLA from Gwalior-Chambal region (who joined the BJP on April 30), was inducted into the state cabinet through the swearing-in ceremony at the Raj Bhawan in the morning.
He was first administered the oath of office and secrecy at around 9.03 am as cabinet minister. But while reading the Hindi text which read 'Rajya ke mantri ke roop mein' (as a minister of Madhya Pradesh), the veteran politician inadvertently misread it as 'Rajya mantri' (minister of state).
Just after the gaffe came to the fore, Rawat was sworn in again (as cabinet minister) by the state’s Governor Mangubhai Patel and this time the seasoned politician made no error while reading the oath’s text.
Since Rawat had signed on the register categorizing him as a cabinet minister after the first oath, there was no need for him to resign as minister of state before taking oath as cabinet minister, official sources said.
Monday morning’s mini-cabinet expansion -- which is perhaps the first time a single minister has been inducted in the cabinet in the state’s history – means that the Mohan Yadav-led council of ministers now has 32 members, including the CM, 2 deputy CMs, 19 cabinet ministers and ten ministers of state. Two vacancies still exist in the council of ministers, which can have a maximum of 34 members.
Just a short while later, Rawat informed the Vidhan Sabha secretariat about having sent his resignation to the Assembly Speaker Narendra Singh Tomar as the six-time MLA from Vijaypur seat of Sheopur district.
The resignation by Rawat means that assembly bypolls will be held in the state in at least two seats – Budhni (vacated by ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan after becoming the country's agriculture minister) and Vijaypur (after the resignation of Rawat).
Monday’s mini-cabinet expansion happened just a few hours before the campaigning came to a close for the July 10 assembly bypoll to Amarwara-ST seat of Chhindwara district. The three-time Congress winner from the seat Kamlesh Shah (who joined the BJP on March 29) is the ruling party candidate from the seat, against the Congress and Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) candidates.
Three sitting Congress MLAs, including third-time MLA Kamlesh Shah, sixth-time MLA Ramniwas Rawat and first-time MLA Nirmala Sapre had quit the Congress to join the BJP during the Lok Sabha polls in the state. While Shah had joined the BJP after resigning from the Vidhan Sabha, Rawat resigned as an MLA on Monday (68 days after he joined the BJP), while Sapre is yet to quit her assembly membership.
Now left with just 63 MLAs in the 230-members House, the opposition Congress MLAs led by the leader of opposition (LoP) Umang Singhar recently petitioned the Assembly Speaker Narendra Singh Tomar, seeking disqualification of Rawat and Sapre as members of the House, as they didn’t quit as MLAs before joining the BJP.