The much-awaited portfolio allocation of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet in Madhya Pradesh was finally undertaken early on Monday morning, 11 days after the cabinet expansion on July 2.
As expected, ex-Congress MLAs, especially those of the Jyotiraditya Scindia camp, have managed to get the pie they desired. The ministers of this camp have been given important departments like revenue, transport, health, women and child development, industries, water resources, food and civil supplies and public health engineering.
However, in a bid to strike a balance, some crucial departments have been allocated to ministers from the ‘original’ BJP cadre. Home, finance, urban administration, public works department, agriculture, cooperatives, higher and technical education, mineral resources and forest departments remain with these original BJP leaders.
Chief Minister Chouhan will hold all the departments not allocated including general administration, public relations, civil aviation and Narmada Valley development.
Five ministers—three of BJP cadre and two of Scindia camp—were already working and with 28 new ministers, there are now 33 ministers in the state.
Among the existing ministers, Narottam Mishra has retained his home portfolio and additionally got legislative affairs, but the health department has been taken away from him and given to Prabhuram Choudhary of Scindia camp. Kamal Patel has retained agriculture and farmers’ welfare and Meena Singh is in charge of SC/ST welfare.
Among Scindia loyalists, Govind Rajput—who earlier had food, civil supplies and cooperatives—has now been given the very important revenue and transport departments. Tulsi Silawat has retained water resources and been additionally given fisheries development.
Senior BJP leaders Gopal Bhargava, Bhupendra Singh and Jagdish Dewda have been given the important departments of public works department, urban administration and finance, respectively. Vijay Shah has got the forest department.
As expected, the distribution of portfolios has the stamp of the BJP central leadership. The word was around that there was internal tussle related to portfolio allocations with Scindia camp and other ex-Congress MLAs demanding their share of the pie. The allocation process remained stalled for as long as 10 days and in between Shivraj Singh Chouhan had visited New Delhi and remained there for two days, meeting BJP central leaders.
Despite Chouhan’s announcements twice before the media on July 5 and July 8 that allocations will be done within a day, the process remained deferred. On Saturday, Chouhan had again said in Gwalior that the allocations will be done on Sunday and repeated it in Bhopal on Sunday that the process will be finalised on the day.
However, the allocation did not come on Sunday and the list was instead released on Monday morning. The allocations show that Scindia has managed to hold on to his demands for loyalist ministers.
Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh has taken a jibe at the allocations. He tweeted saying "finally, the loot distribution' was completed after 11 days. Revenue, transport, water resources goes to runaways while excise, urban administration goes to BJP. Let's see how much welfare of people this interim government can do and how much do the officers listen to the interim cabinet."
In another tweet, he said "why is Scindia ji so interested in revenue and transport departments? Wise people understand”.
Lodhi, independent MLA get plum posts
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan also attempted to balance out some other aspirants for big posts on Sunday night. Pradyumna Singh Lodhi who joined BJP only on Sunday after resigning as Congress MLA was made the chairman of the MP State Civil Supplies Corporation Ltd., within five hours, whereas independent MLA Pradeep Jaiswal, who was minister in Kamal Nath cabinet, was made the chairman of MP State Mining Corporation Ltd.
Both these posts are of cabinet minister rank and considered quite lucrative. With both of these going to ex-Congressmen (Jaiswal was with Congress before 2018 Assembly polls) too, discontent among BJP original cadre is only likely to grow, political watchers feel.
Portfolios of Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet:
Cabinet ministers
BJP original cadre
Narottam Mishra: Home, legislative affairs
Kamal Patel: Farmers’ welfare and agriculture development
Meena Singh: SC/ST welfare
Gopal Bhargava: Public works department, cottage and rural industries
Bhupendra Singh: Urban administration and housing
Yashodhara Raje Scindia: Sports, youth welfare, technical education
Vijay Shah: Forest
Jagdish Dewda: Finance, commercial tax, statistics and planning
Brijendra Pratap Singh: Mineral resources, labour
Vishwas Sarang: Medical education, Gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation
BJP new faces
Usha Thakur: Tourism, culture, spirituality
Prem Singh Patel: Animal husbandry, social justice, disability welfare
Arvind Bhadoria: Cooperatives, public service management
Mohan Yadav: Higher education
Omprakash Sakhlecha: Micro small and medium enterprises (MSME)
Ex-Congress MLAs
Bisahulal Singh: Food and civil supplies
Aindal Singh Kansana: Public health engineering
Hardeep Singh Dang: New and renewable energy, environment
Scindia supporters (ex-MLAs)
Tulsi Silawat: Water resources, fisheries development
Govind Rajput: Revenue, transport
Imarti Devi: Women and child development
Prabhuram Choudhary: Health and family welfare
Mahendra Singh Sisodia: Panchayat and rural development
Pradyumna Singh Tomar: Energy
Rajyawardhan Singh Dattigaon: Industries, investment promotion
Ministers of state
BJP new faces
Bharat Singh Kushwah: Horticulture and food processing (independent charge), Narmada Valley development
Inder Singh Parmar: School education (independent charge), general administration
Ramkhelawan Patel: Backward classes, minorities welfare (independent charge), panchayat and rural development
Ramkishore Kawre: AYUSH (independent charge), water resources
Scindia supporters (ex-MLAs)
Brijendra Singh Yadav: Public health engineering
Girraj Dandotia: Farmers’ welfare and agriculture development
Suresh Dhakad: Public works department
O.P.S. Bhadoria: Urban administration
