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Prahlad Patel, Kailash Vijayvargiya among 28 inducted as Madhya Pradesh ministers
Mohan Yadav took oath as chief minister on December 13 along with Rajendra Shukla and Jagdish Devda who were sworn in as deputy CMs
BHOPAL: Twenty eight legislators, including Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and former Union culture minister Prahlad Patel, took oath as ministers in the first cabinet expansion of chief minister Mohan Yadav-led government in Madhya Pradesh on Monday.
Governor Mangubhai Patel administered the oath of office and secrecy to 18 MLAs as cabinet ministers, six MLAs as ministers of state with independent charge, and four as ministers of state.
Apart from former MP Patel, two other former MPs, Rakesh Singh and Rao Uday Pratap Singh, were sworn in as cabinet ministers. Former Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar has already taken over as the assembly speaker.
Other cabinet ministers who took oath included Karan Singh Verma, Nagar Singh Chauhan, Samapatiya Uike, Eidal Singh Kansana, Pradyuman Singh Tomar, Inder Singh Parmar, Nirmala Bhuria, Tulsi Silawat, Vijay Shah, Vishwas Sarang, Govind Singh Rajput, Narayan Singh Kushwaha, Rakesh Shukla and Chetan Kashyap.
Krishna Gaur, Dharmendra Lodhi, Dilip Jaiswal, Gautam Tetwal, Lakhan Patel and Narayan Panwar took oath as ministers of state with independent charge. Radha Singh, Pratima Bagri, Dilip Ahirwar and Narendra Shivaji Patel took oath as ministers of state.
The maximum strength of the council of ministers in Madhya Pradesh, which has 230 MLAs, is 35, including the chief minister. As of now, the total number is 31.
As many as 17 of 28 MLAs inducted in the new cabinet are new faces and six of them are first-time MLAs.
Twelve ministers are from other backward classes that constitute about 50% of the state’s population. Four ministers are from scheduled castes that comprise about 16% of the population, four ministers are from scheduled tribes, which are 21% in the state, and eight ministers are from the general category, who constitute 13% of the population.
“The state government tried to balance the representations of different castes and region. Women representation has also been increased,” BJP state president VD Sharma said.
“The BJP has no place for experienced leaders. It is good to give chances to the new, but the BJP is behaving autocratically by ignoring senior leaders. We felt bad about many leaders like Vijayvargiya, who again became minister after seven years,” said Congress spokesperson KK Mishra.
