BJP picks Mohan Yadav as Madhya Pradesh chief minister

BJP veteran and former Agricultural Minister Narendra Singh Tomar will take charge as the speaker of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the BJP decided after the legislative meeting.

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh CM Chouhan submitted his resignation to Governor Mangubhai Patel after Yadav was elected as the leader of the state legislative party.

Chouhan reached Raj Bhavan immediately after the meeting of newly-elected MLAs concluded and submitted his resignation.

The BJP retained power in MP following the November 17 polls, winning 163 seats in the 230-member assembly, leaving the Congress a distant second with 66 seats.

Under Yadav's leadership, the BJP is going to form the government for the fifth time in Madhya Pradesh in two decades. It came to power in the state in 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2020.

Mohan Yadav is the MLA from the South Ujjain constituency. Mohan Yadav became MLA for the first time in 2013 from the Ujjain Dakshin seat. In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections, he was once again elected and became MLA from the Ujjain Dakshin seat. He took the oath as a cabinet minister in the Madhya Pradesh government headed by Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan in July 2020.

He also served as the City Minister of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Ujjain in 1984 and Head of Department in 1986, according to a news18.com report. In 1988, he was the state co-secretary and member of the national executive of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Madhya Pradesh and he also served as the state minister of the state unit of the council from 1989 to 1990, it added.

The BJP mainly depended on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's widespread appeal going into the election instead of using four-time chief minister Shivraj Sing Chouhan as its face. Chouhan took the oath of office four times: in 2005, 2008, 2013, and 2020.

Multiple media reports had named OBC leader Prahlad Patel, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kailash Vijayvargiya, state unit chief VD Sharma, and former Union minister and recently elected Dimani MLA Narendra Tomar as the front-runners for the top job.

Since 2003, all three CMs of the BJP in MP—Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur, and Chouhan—have been from the Other Backward Classes. The population of OBCs in MP is around 48%.

Earlier, three central observers of the BJP, including Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, reached Bhopal on Monday to take part in the meeting of the newly-elected party MLAs and decide on the next chief minister of the state.

BJP state party chief VD Sharma and other leaders welcomed them at the Bhopal airport. From the airport, the three observers headed to the chief minister's residence to meet CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.