New Delhi: Mohan Yadav – a third-time MLA from an Other Backward Classes (OBC community and with strong roots in the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) – will be the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.After dilly-dallying for a week, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislature party finally elected the 58-year-old Mohan Yadav, who held the higher education department as a minister under the outgoing BJP government, as the party’s choice to lead the central Indian state, in a move that caught most observers by surprise. While there were many BJP leaders said to be in the running for the CM’s post ever since the party won a thumping two-thirds majority on December 3, Yadav was not among them.Yadav would have two deputies – Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla – both of whom have a long association with the party and have won multiple elections. Devda is a Dalit, while Shukla belongs to the Brahmin community. Narendra Singh Tomar, who was parachuted back from Delhi to contest the Assembly election, will be the Speaker of the MP Assembly. For many, he had also been a serious contender for the CM post.By picking an OBC, a Dalit, and an ‘upper caste’ to lead the state, the saffron party has again demonstrated its tactic of balancing caste aspirations under a united Hindu political consciousness. The selection of Yadav as its CM in MP has also indicated the BJP’s desire to create a new leadership in the state, where it already has strong ideological and organisational roots, and cement its goodwill among the numerically-significant backward caste voters. Given that Yadav has no mass following of his own or proven record of charisma, the double-engine government appears to be lopsided with the Narendra Modi-led Centre assuming even more authority.Structurally, the shift from Chouhan to Yadav is not that stark as both had a similar political trajectory, groomed in politics by the RSS and honing their skills in the BJP’s organization. Barring a 15-month stint by Congress in 2018-2020, the BJP has ruled MP since 2003 without interruption. Much of that was under the leadership of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, whose time as a CM also came to an end, for now, with Yadav’s elevation. The party is yet to clear the air about Chouhan’s future: will he continue to play a dominant role in state politics as a powerful minister or will he take up a new role in national politics ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election?Yadav and Chouhan exchanged the baton after the party’s legislature meeting by putting up a show of unity. When Chouhan offered Yadav a bouquet to congratulate him, the latter responded by touching the outgoing CM’s feet, a gesture of respect. Chouhan then extended his hand and placed it over Yadav’s head to bless him.Yadav: An aggressive and shriller proponent of BJP politicsIn 2023, Yadav won his third consecutive election from the Ujjain South seat, although the margin of victory over the Congress candidate this time was thin (12,941 votes). In Yadav, the BJP has found an aggressive and shriller proponent of its politics, one who has risen in the organisational ladder of the party over the years and ultimately tasted electoral success.Girija Shankar, a senior journalist based in Bhopal, said by picking Yadav as CM, the BJP had started building a “new generation of leaders” in the state. “It has started. But how effective that will be, the coming times will tell us,” Shankar told The Wire.If he ever expected Yadav to become CM, Shankar said: “Whenever someone is elected as CM, at that time we cannot comment if he or she is worthy of the post. A person becomes a big leader after he or she gets an opportunity.”By that accord, Yadav, though not that well-known outside MP, has immense experience as an organisation man and legislator. He started his political career in the early 1980s as a student leader. From 1986 to 1997 he rose through the ranks of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS, in his hometown Ujjain before working with the youth wing of the BJP of which he was appointed a state executive member in 1997.Yadav held the post of the BJP’s Ujjain general secretary from 2000 to 2003, was a member of the state working committee in 2004 and went on to become a part of the party’s state executive. Yadav held the post of the chairperson of the Ujjain Development Authority from 2004 to 2010 and the president of the MP State Tourism Development Corporation from 2011 to 2013.He won his first election in 2013 and repeated his performance in 2018 and 2023. In July 2020, months after the BJP snatched power from an elected government of the Congress through the help of rebel MLAs, Yadav took oath as a cabinet minister.Yadav has been in the news for his controversial statements and for deploying invectives for his political rivals. In November, while campaigning for the election, he targeted the Congress candidate for being an ‘outsider’ and threatened to send him packing to ‘where he came from’. “Will you obstruct the development work in Ujjain? Has your father fed you milk? Is this your status, that you will shut down the mike in the temple of Baba Mahakal,” Yadav said.In 2020, the Election Commission reprimanded him and barred him from campaigning for a day for using “intemperate language transgressing the limits of decency” in bypoll elections. In January this year, the Congress again complained to the EC about an alleged violation of model code of conduct by Yadav when he posted a photograph of him pulling out a currency note from his wallet while a woman was applying tilak on his forehead during campaigning for the state civic body polls.Soon after the BJP picked Yadav as its CM for MP, the Congress also started tweeting an old video of him making ‘controversial’ statements about Sita. Speaking at an event to honour Karsevaks in December 2022, Yadav, while referring to the “sacrifice” made by them towards a Ram Rajya, mentioned the struggles of Sita in the Hindu epic Ramayan.Yadav said that Sita, despite being pregnant and forced to give birth in the forest, continued to hold her husband Lord Ram in high regard as he had abandoned her for the sake of principles. Referring to the abandonment of Sita, Yadav equated it to the modern-day idea of divorce.“Consider it a life after talaq…when someone is thrown out of the house,” he had said. In the same speech, he also made remarks, which were interpreted by some as him suggesting that Sita committed suicide in front of her husband. Although Yadav later clarified his comments, saying he was only defining the sacrifice and devotion needed to build a Ram Rajya, the Congress accused him of insulting Sita and even raised it in the state Assembly. On Monday, while sharing a clip of Yadav’s speech, media advisor of Kamal Nath Piyush Babele tweeted, “The BJP is giving MP such a CM who had insulted Mata Sita from a public platform.”The two deputy CMs, Devda and Shukla, also held ministerial portfolios in the last government. Devda, who won six elections before this and has been a minister in the previous Chouhan governments, held the finance and commercial tax department. Devda started his career with student union politics and the youth wing of the BJP, winning his first election in 1990. He is currently an MLA from Malhargarh constituency in Mandsaur, which falls in the northern belt of Malwa region of the state, close to Rajasthan.Shukla, on the other hand, won his fifth consecutive election from Rewa, which is located on the eastern fringes of the state in the Vindhya region. He was inducted as a minister in the Chouhan government in its last cabinet reshuffle in August, 2023, months ahead of the Assembly election.The BJP won 163 out of the 230 seats with its highest-ever vote percentage of 48.55% while the Congress tally fell to 66 seats even though it retained its vote share of 40.40%.Chouhan, on X (formerly Twitter), described Yadav as a “hardworking colleague.” “I have full faith that under the able guidance of honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi, you will take Madhya Pradesh to new heights of progress and development and will create new records in public welfare,” Chouhan said.Yadav, in his thanksgiving speech, referred to himself as a “small party worker.” Born in 1965, Yadav is also the state president of the MP Wrestling Association and state vice-president of the MP Olympic Federation. He holds a doctorate degree and as per his official profile in the state Assembly, states lawyer, business and farming as his occupation.The BJP’s new government led by a fresh face under 60 years old also increases the generation gap between the party and its rival Congress, which is still led by two veterans Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, aged 77 and 76. How the Congress tries to counter Yadav, who also brings in a sharper rhetoric on Hindutva in comparison to the passive Chouhan, emerges as a new challenge for the grand old party as it not only tries to recover ground in the upcoming general election but also develop a leadership for the next state election.For the BJP, with such a large mandate, it appears it could also be facing a problem of plenty when it comes to power sharing and satisfying various factions, including one led by Jyotiraditya Scindia. However, given its comfortable position it can afford to experiment and get a few things wrong as it conducts a change in leadership after two decades. For a start, by picking a Yadav, a community it tries to demonize in states such as Bihar and UP, to polarize other OBCs, the party may also be widening its umbrella of support at a time when the Opposition, left with no choice, has resorted to pursuing backward caste politics, albeit nascent.What next for Chouhan, is also a question that will continue to be discussed in the days to come. Soon after the results were declared on December 3, Chouhan, emerging from the sidelines to reclaim his importance in the state politics, got into campaign mode for the 2024 Lok Sabha election with his Mission 29—a target to win all the LS seats in the state. He held public meetings in districts where the BJP lost and ensured the voters were reminded of the role of his flagship schemes, especially those for women, behind the huge mandate. Addressing workers in Raghogarh, however, he did drop hints that he would no longer be the CM. “Mama aur bhaiya padh duniya mein kisi ki padh se bada hain. (The status of a maternal uncle and brother is higher than any other post in the world),” he said.Will Mohan Yadav be able to live up to the legacy of the mama of MP politics?
