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Will decide who will be Madhya Pradesh CM after election results: Amit Shah
Union home minister Amit Shah said on Sunday that the BJP will decide on the Madhya Pradesh chief minister’s post only after the elections.
Union home minister Amit Shah said on Sunday that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will decide on the Madhya Pradesh chief minister’s post only after the elections, appearing to sidestep questions on whether the incumbent, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, will continue in the post.
Read here: Amit Shah releases 'report card' of BJP-led MP govt: ‘Removed BIMARU tag from state’
The remarks come at a time when the party has begun campaigning for the polls, expected to be held in November, without naming a chief ministerial candidate.
“Shivraj ji is the chief minister. It’s our party’s job [to decide on the post] and we will decide,” said Shah when asked by journalists if Chouhan would be the chief minister in case BJP retains power in the elections.
The former BJP president then added: “At present Shivraj ji is the chief minister and we are in elections. The party will do what its job is. My appeal to you is to convey to people whatever work has been done under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan so that development could be set as an agenda for the elections.”
Earlier, while releasing a report card on the state government’s performance over the last two decades and while launching the ‘Garib Kalyan Maha Abhiyan’, the Union minister indicated that PM Modi will be the main figure for its campaign.
To be sure, BJP does not traditionally names its CM face before the elections in the states where it’s in the Opposition. The state’s where it’s in power, the incumbent CM is considered to be the front-runner for the post if it retains power. However, senior functionaries said that a final call on who will be the CM is taken by the party’s parliamentary board, BJP’s highest decision taking body, after the results.
“You may ask why I am counting India’s achievements (under Modi government). I am doing this because Madhya Pradesh’s people have to decide whether for the next five years, MP has to be in the list of 24 scams (that allegedly took place under the UPA government) or in the list of no 1 and no 2 ranks,” said Shah.
A senior BJP leader who did not want to be named said that unlike 2008, 2013 and 2018 assembly elections, the BJP did not declare the party’s CM’s face in Chouhan as yet and there were strong indications that the party will stick with this strategy till the elections.
Read here: ‘Bimaru no more’: Amit Shah lauds Madhya Pradesh’s governance
Senior Congress leader Shobha Oza said, “It’s very much clear that chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has lost his credibility in the eyes of people of Madhya Pradesh and BJP leadership both given a lot of major scams that took place during his regime so far including Vyapam scam. The patwari exam scam was the latest. Hence, the BJP leadership doesn’t want to annoy people further by declaring him as the CM face. However, in any case, the BJP is not going to retain power.”
