Bhopal. The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government, which came to power following the collapse of the Congress in March 2020 following the resignation of 22 MLAs led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, completed two years in office on Wednesday. The collapse of the Congress government saw Shivraj Singh Chouhan sworn in as the chief minister of the state for a fourth term on March 23, 2020.
With this, Chouhan is now also the longest-serving BJP chief minister, retaining the chief minister’s post for a period of more than 15 years. He surpassed the record of former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who held the position for 15 years and four days.
While Raman Singh has achieved this feat three times in a row, Chauhan has taken oath of office four times. He has the fourth longest tenure among the current Chief Ministers of the country. Odisha’s Naveen Patnaik tops the list, followed by Bihar’s Nitish Kumar and Nagaland’s Neiphiu Rio.
Among the 18 chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh (1952 to today), including Kamal Nath (December 17, 2018 to March 23, 2020), Chouhan is the only chief minister to have taken oath for the post four times. Late Congress leader Shyama Charan Shukla has a record of three terms as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh – from 26 March 1969 to 28 January 1972, the second term from 23 December to 30 April 1977 and the third term from 9 December 1989 to 1 March 1990. .
Chouhan is also the BJP’s third chief minister in Madhya Pradesh, when the party defeated the Congress and ended former chief minister Digvijay Singh’s 10-year rule (7 December 1993 to 7 December 2003) in December 2003.
Veteran BJP leader Chouhan was first sworn in as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on November 29, 2005, after taking over as the former Chief Minister of the state (August 23, 2004 to November 9, 2005), Babulal Gaur, who served as the Chief Minister of the state. Uma Bharti (8 December 2003 to 23 August 2004) was the first woman chief minister of India.
After toppling the Congress, Chouhan has kept away competition from even within his own party as there is no dearth of strong leaders in the BJP’s MP unit. The party has deep roots in the state since the days of Jan Sangh. Chouhan’s main contestants are BJP’s national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and state home minister Narottam Mishra.
While Vijayvargiya has made his career outside the state. While serving as the party in-charge for the Haryana assembly elections and general secretary in-charge of West Bengal, Mishra has held several ministerial posts, including the state’s home minister, during the BJP rule in MP.
Political watchers say that in the coming days, a new challenge for Chouhan will be the BJP’s state president V.D. Sharma, who represents Khajuraho in the Lok Sabha, and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia could also become a threat to him in future. However, amid murmurs over the past few months from BJP’s national headquarters in New Delhi to state capital Bhopal replacing Chouhan, state BJP leaders said the upcoming assembly elections in 2023 would be fought under Chouhan’s leadership.
—AnyTV News
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