As many as 17 of the 28 ministers who were inducted into the Mohan Yadav cabinet in Madhya Pradesh on Monday are new faces.
Of the newly inducted ministers, 18 have been given cabinet ranks, six ministers of state with independent charge and four ministers of state.
With Monday’s expansion, the cabinet size has now increased to 31 inclusive of the Chief Minister Yadav and his deputies Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla. The Madhya Pradesh cabinet can have maximum 33 members and thus two slots are yet vacant.
Of the 17 new faces, six are first time MLAs, though they include prominent names like ex-union minister Prahlad Singh Patel, ex-BJP state president and Member of Parliament Rakesh Singh and ex-Rajya Sabha member Sampatiya Uikey. The other three first timers are Narendra Patel, Pratima Bagri and Radha Singh.
Five women ministers – four of them new faces – have been inducted, a tally equal to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan ministry of 2013-18. They include Uikey, Bagri, Singh and Krishna Gaur. Nirmala Bhuria, the other woman MLA who was inducted, was a minister earlier in 2008-13.
Ex-union minister Narendra Singh Tomar has been made assembly speaker while another union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste lost the polls.
Three supporters of union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia—Tulsi Silawat, Pradhuman Singh Tomar and Govind Rajput—have also been made cabinet ministers though others like Prabhuram Choudhary and Brajendra Singh Yadav were dropped. Bisahulal Singh and Hardip Singh Dang, who had been made ministers in 2020 after shifting to BJP from Congress also could not get place in the Yadav cabinet.
10 former ministers dropped; prominent names missing
A total of 10 ministers in the former Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet including prominent leaders like Gopal Bhargava (10 times MLA and former leader of opposition), Bhupendra Singh, Brijendra Pratap Singh, Usha Thakur, Meena Singh and Omprakash Sakhlecha were also dropped. Ex-ministers like veteran Jayant Malaiya and Ajay Vishnoi also could not find place in the cabinet.
Of the 33 members in the Chouhan cabinet, 31 had re-contested but 12 of them lost the polls. Of the 19 who won, three are already CM and deputy CMs. Only another six have found place in the current cabinet. They are Vijay Shah, Vishvas Sarang, Inder Singh Parmar, Silawat, Tomar and Rajput.
Among former ministers (from the BJP cabinets before the 2020-23 tenure) who have again made it to the cabinet include Vijayvargiya, nine times MLA Karan Singh Verma, Nirmala Bhuria and Narayan Singh Kushwaha. Scindia supporter Aidal Singh Kansana, who had left Congress to join BJP and was made minister in July 2020 but had to resign after losing by-polls in November same year, has also made a cut in the cabinet this time.
Regional, caste equations
As far as the regional balance in the Yadav cabinet, as many as nine including Yadav himself and deputy CM Devda, are from the crucial Malwa-Nimad region that makes up for 66 seats in the assembly. Six ministers are from the central Madhya Pradesh inclusive of Bhopal and Hoshangabad divisions and four ministers each are from Gwalior-Chambal, Mahakoshal, Vindhya (including deputy CM Rajendra Shukla) and Bundelkhand regions.
Caste wise, 12 ministers among the new ministers are from OBC category, eight from general category and four each from scheduled tribe and scheduled caste categories. Thus the total representation of OBCs – who make for over 50 per cent of the state population, is 13 out of 31 (including CM Yadav). Deputy CMs Shukla and Devda are from general and SC category respectively.
Interestingly, though the tribal community was given a lot of a prominence ahead of the polling and the BJP won 24 of the 47 ST reserved seats – a good upswing from 16 seats in 2018 - only four tribal ministers have found place in the 31-member cabinet. Tribals constitute about 21 per cent of Madhya Pradesh population.
LIST OF MINISTERS
Cabinet ministers
Kailash Vijayvargiya - Indore 1
Prahlad Singh Patel - Narsinghpur
Rakesh Singh - Jabalpur West
Karan Singh Verma - Ichhawar (Sehore)
Rao Uday Pratap Singh- Gadarwara (Narsinghpur)
Vijay Shah - Harsud (Khandwa) (old)
Tulsiram Silawat - Sanver (Indore) (old)
Aidal Singh Kansana - Sumawali (Morena)
Nirmala Bhuria - Petlawad (Jhabua)
Govind Singh Rajput – Surkhi (Sagar) (old)
Vishvas Sarang - Narela (Bhopal) (old)
Narayan Singh Kushwaha - Gwalior South
Nagar Singh Chouhan - Alirajpur
Chaitanya Kashyap – Ratlam
Inder Singh Parmar - Shujalpur (Shajapur) (old)
Rakesh Shukla - Mehgaon (Bhind)
Pradhuman Singh Tomar – Gwalior (old)
Sampatiya Uikey - Mandla
Ministers of State (independent charges)
Krishna Gaur – Govindpura (Bhopal)
Dharmendra Lodhi - Jabera (Damoh),
Dilip Jaiswal - Kotma (Anuppur)
Lakhan Patel - Patharia (Damoh)
Narayan Singh Panwar - Biaora (Rajgarh)
Gautan Tetwal - Sarangpur (Rajgarh)
Ministers of State
Narendra Shivaji Patel - Udaipura (Raisen)
Pratima Bagri - Raigaon (Satna)
Radha Singh - Chitrangi (Singrauli)
Dileep Ahirwar - Chandla (Chhatarpur)