Perhaps Babulal Gaur is not only the senior most leader of Madhya Pradesh but also in the entire country. He has been MLA since 1973 without any break. He began his own carrier as a Textile Mill worker and by his hard work, devotion and dedication occupied many high positions in the party and the government. He acted a leader of the opposition, member of the cabinet headed by Shri S.L. Patwa. He was also sworn in as chief minister after Uma Bharati removals. Later he was inducted as a minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet with home portfolio.

Gaur claims that at 86, he is more smart than a young person. The chief minister sent two emissaries to Gaur to request him to resign. But he declined. He told the emissaries that he would resign if the party high command asks him to do so. Gaur told this correspondent that later BJP in charge of Madhya Pradesh Ramlal told him that the central leadership has fixed a criterion according to which no person of more than 75 years can occupy any post in the government and party. After that at 5 P.M. he submitted his resignation.

Similarly Sardar Sartaj Singh also declined to resign on the request of the chief minister which was conveyed through his emissaries. Sartaj Singh was a close aide of Late H.V. Kamath, the legendary socialist leader, who represented Hoshangabad Constituency in the Lok Sabha. Later he joined the BJP. He was five times Lok Sabha member and two times MLA. He was also member of the ministry headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. With his removal there is no representative of the minorities in the MP ministry. As ministers the performance of Gaur and Sartaj Singh was commendable. It is a well-known fact that the chief minister himself was against the dropping of Gaur and Sartaj Singh. But he could not have his way.

In all nine ministers were inducted in the ministry. They are Rustam Singh (71), Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya (60), Archna Chitnis (52), Omprakash Dhurve (52), all cabinet ministers. Those who were inducted as minister of state are: Sanjay Pathak (45), Harsh Singh (62), Lata Yadav (54), Vishwas Sarang (44) and Surya Prakash Meena (52). Originally Jaibhan Singh Pawaiya was to be appointed as minister of state. The moment he came to know about this on reaching Raj Bhavan, he nearly staged a walkout. But he was persuaded to come back and was informed that he will have the rank of a cabinet minister.

There was a lot of behind the curtain activity during Thursday. Kailash Vijayvargiya, a powerful leader from Indore who now holds the position of BJP general secretary put his foot down and protested against the inclusion of Sudarshan Gupta who was the nominee of Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan. Vijayvargiya wanted his supporter Ramesh Mendola to be in the ministry. With the result Indore remained unrepresented in the ministry.

The ministry expansion has left no one fully satisfied – neither the CM, nor the RSS, nor heavy-weight leaders like Kailash Vijayvargiya and Narendra Tomar. All have something to celebrate but all had to compromise on some names. The chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wanted to include Sanjay Pathak, Om Prakash Dhurve and Suryaprakash Meena and he had his way. But he had to compromise on dropping Babulal Gaur and Sartaj Singh–something he did not want to do. The RSS and state organizational secretary Suhas Bhagat were against Sanjay Pathak but he could not have his way. Union minister Narendra Tomar did not want Pawaiya and Rustam Singh but had to give in.

On the other hand the RSS wanted Archana Chitnis and Jaibhan Pawaiya to be in and it succeeded. State BJP president Nandkumar Chauhan did not want to see Archana Chitnis as minister but failed to prevent her induction. The ministry expansion triggered loud protests from MLAs who thought that they were almost in but had to face disappointment at the last moment. The supporters of MLA Ramlal Rotel reached the state BJP office where they created a ruckus. They were angry over non-inclusion of their leader in the ministry. They raised slogans against the CM and minister Gyan Singh. MLAs Ranjana Baghel, Omprakash Saklecha and Sudarshan Gupta expressed their anger publicly.

Baghel a tribal said that her name was struck off from the list of would be ministers at the behest of a party senior leader. She claimed that composition of state cabinet was improper as there was no representation of the tribal communities of Dhar and Jhabua districts in it. Baghel maintains that she missed the bus as she did not have a Godfather. Her supporters from her constituency reached Bhopal for the oath-taking ceremony but had to return disappointed. She said gross injustice has been done to her and she would put up her view point before party’s senior leaders.

Omprakash Saklecha said that only the chief minister could tell the reason behind not making him a minister. Saklecha said that a person who had recently joined the party has been appointed minister. He said those who were sons of former chief ministers and ministers were appointed. He said that he does not know how to react.

In the recent past, Chouhan, on the issue of reservation in promotions has shown his commitment towards scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SCs and STs) but in the first expansion of the ministry in his third term, only one minster belonging to ST category – Omprakash Dhurvey – was inducted. Surprisingly, none of the new ministers comes from the SC community.

As far as regional political equations are concerned, Malwa region was ignored totally in cabinet expansion. Not giving any representation to Indore and Ujjain divisions may cost dear to the party in the coming time. Both these divisions played key role in bringing BJP in to power in 2013. (IPA Service)