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ABVP leader to Madhya Pradesh CM: Mohan Yadav rises up the ranks in BJP to helm MP
Mohan Yadav, 58, may have been a surprise pick as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh – his name did not even find a mention among the hopefuls being speculated upon – but there’s no denying his credentials.
Mohan Yadav, 58, may have been a surprise pick as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh – his name did not even find a mention among the hopefuls being speculated upon – but there’s no denying his credentials. A student leader for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS’s student wing in the early 1980s, when just out of his teens; city president of the RSS in Ujjain by the mid-1990s, and then of the BJP by 2003; a first-time legislator in 2013 (he has won all three elections he contested, including that year’s); state education minister in 2020; and now, chief minister.
His commitment to the BJP’s core ideology, administrative and political experience, and the fact that he belongs to an other backward class (OBC), a group that is a key constituent of the the BJP’s rainbow Hindu coalition, has made Yadav the man tasked with leading Madhya Pradesh, replacing the three-term incumbent Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
A BJP leader claimed that within the party, Yadav had been discussed as a potential leader even three years previously. “In 2020 and 2021, there was much talk of a generational shift and a change of guard. Within the party, Yadav had been spoken of, for three reasons. The first was that he was backed by the RSS, (the second) that he was an OBC leader, and (the third) that he was considered close to Shivraj Singh Chouhan whose opposition would then be muted,” this person added, asking not to be named. Chouhan himself is 64, not considered old in Indian politics.
Born and brought up in Ujjain, Yadav was the ABVP secretary at the Madhav Vigyan Mahavidyalaya in the city in 1983, and became the body’s president in 1985. From 1993 to 1995, he was the RSS ‘sah karyavah’ for Ujjain. In 2013, he became the MLA from Ujjain South for the first time, and turned it into a bastion for the party.
In 2009, as the president of the Madhya Pradesh Culture and Tourism Board, Yadav started “Vikramutsav”, a programme for research on Maharaj Vikramaditya. A senior RSS leader said, ‘Yadav was a quiet, but hard working leader within the organisation. He took Ujjain forward and fits the BJP policy of promoting ground workers.” But over his political tenure, Yadav has also cultivated the reputation of being aggressive, and on November 15, on the last day of campaigning for the assembly polls, caused a stir when he said that the Congress was opposing the development of Ujjain, and “would be buried where they came from.”
Yadav has been the president of the Madhya Pradesh Amateur Wrestling Association for the past 12 years and is considered close to controversial Gonda member of Parliament Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who found himself at the centre of sexual harassment allegations by the country’s top wrestlers earlier this year. Yadav’s name is one of four vice presidents proposed for the post in the Wrestling Federation of India nominations by the Brij Bhushan panel, in elections slated for December 21.
A keen promoter of akharas (wrestling schools) in Madhya Pradesh, wrestling events have often been organised on the sidelines of political events that Yadav helmed in Malwa. Pappu Yadav, a former national level wrestler, said, “Because he promoted sports, Yadav is popular among the youth, which is why he was made education minister and now chief minister. He is known among us for organising dangals (wrestling competitions).”
As higher education minister, Yadav laid the foundation stone for the “world’s first vedic clock” at Jiwaji observatory in Ujjain in November 2022. At the time, Yadav said, “The special thing about this clock is that it will be based on the Vedic calculation of time, in which the 24 hours of the day are divided into muhurats. The Vedic clock will be synced with the position of the sun, and also with the times of sunrise and sunset at different places across the world.”
In September 2021, during his tenure as higher education minister, the state government introduced the study of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas for undergraduate students and said that engineering students in the state will be taught about the Ram Setu. Yadav said that these changes would “bring our glorious past to the fore.”
Mahendra Singh Bais, a political expert from Ujjain, said that Yadav was known as a “good administrator ”
“He has the image of a simple and sincere leader. As a legislator, he played an important role in the completion of the Ujjain Mahakal Lok. This image will help the party in the Lok Sabha elections,” Bais said.
