Dy CMs, few & far between in MP

Bhopal: The BJP while naming Mohan Yadav as Madhya Pradesh chief minister, has named two deputy chief ministers namely – Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla. This is the first time that a BJP government in the state will have two deputy chief ministers.Madhya Pradesh seldom had a history of having deputy chief ministers. Though few Congress governments had experimented with the idea, the BJP has never had a deputy chief minister. Mostly it has been the chief minister who called the shots with the home minister or finance minister being the number two, as was evident during the BJP rule of Sunderlal Patwa in 1991-1993 and subsequent governments led by Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur and Shivraj Singh Chouhan between 2003 to 2023.Only during the Bharatya Jana Sangh led government in 1967 the then chief minister late Govind Narayan Singh’s cabinet had a deputy CM in Virendra Kumar Sakhlecha, who later went on to become the chief minister in 1978. Sakhlecha represented the Jawad constituency in Neemuch district.Later, in the Arjun Singh cabinet in the 1980s, prominent tribal face and senior Congress leader Shiv Bhanu Singh Solanki, who lost the race to chief minister’s post was accommodated as the deputy CM. Solanki represented the Dhar assembly constituency.Almost a decade later, this tradition of having deputy CMs was revived by former chief minister Digvijaya Singh who led the Congress party to victory in the state in 1993. Digvijaya had two deputy CMs between 1993 and 1998— senior leader and leading light of the co-operative movement in the state, Subhash Yadav, and tribal face Pyarelal Kanwar. Yadav represented the Kasrawad assembly seat in Khargone district while Kanwar represented the Rampur seat in Bilaspur district in undivided MP.During Digvijaya’s second term as chief minister, firebrand tribal leader Jamuna Devi, who represented Kukshi assembly seat, was the deputy chief minister between 1998-2003.After almost two decades of Digvijaya Singh government, the BJP has now appointed two deputy chief ministers to maintain the caste equations. Jagdish Devda has won assembly elections for the eighth time from Malhargarh SC seat in Mandsaur district while Rajendra Shukla, the brahmin face in Vindhya region won from Rewa seat.
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