Bhopal: Apart from high-profile BJP leaders Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jyotiraditya Sindia, three other BJP Lok Sabha MPs from Madhya Pradesh — Virendra Khatik, Durgadas Uike, and Savitri Thakur — were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers in the third tenure of the NDA led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.
While Chouhan, Scindia, and Khatik were sworn in as Cabinet Ministers, Durgadas Uike and Savitri Thakur were inducted into the Cabinet as Ministers of State by President Droupadi Murmu on Sunday.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Vidisha)
Four-time former Chief Minister Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan (65) won his sixth Lok Sabha elections from Vidisha and became a Cabinet Minister for the first time.
After his stint with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student’s wing of the RSS, during his college days in Bhopal, Chouhan made his electoral debut in 1990 when he won the Assembly elections from his hometown Budhni in Sehor district.
A year later, he contested the Lok Sabha elections from Vidisha in 1991 and went on to retain the seat for four consecutive times, from 1996 to 2004, until he became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh in 2005.
Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna)
Jyotiraditya Scindia, who was the Union Minister for Civil Aviation and Steel in the previous NDA government, retained his Cabinet birth in PM Modi’s third term.
Scindia’s political journey began after his father and senior Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia died in a plane crash in 2001. He contested the ensuing Lok Sabha bypoll on a Congress ticket from family bastion Guna and won against BJP’s Rao Deshraj Singh Yadav by a margin of over 4.5 lakh votes.
He was re-reelected in 2004 from Guna and was inducted into the Union Cabinet in 2007 as the Minister of State for Commerce and Industry in the first tenure of the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh.
A member of the erstwhile royal family of Gwalior, Scindia (53) scored a hat-trick from Guna in 2009. In 2014, he won again from Guna but the UPA lost power to the BJP-led NDA.
However, Scindia faced a major setback in 2019 when he lost the Lok Sabha elections against BJP’s K.P. Yadav from his family bastion by a margin of 1,25,549 votes. It was a humiliating defeat as it was the first time that any Scindia family member lost from their pocket-borough Guna.
A year earlier in 2018, the Congress led by Kamal Nath, Scindia, and Digvijaya Singh ousted the BJP from power in Madhya Pradesh.
However, in 2020, Scindia disassociated with the grand old party and joined the BJP. In 2021, the BJP made Scindia a Rajya Sabha MP and handed him the Civil Aviation and Steel portfolios in the second term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
This year, Scindia fought his sixth Lok Sabha elections, but the first on a BJP ticket, and won against Congress’ Rao Yadavendra Singh Yadav by a margin of over 5 lakh votes.
Virendra Khatik (Tikamgarh)
Eight-time MP Virendra Khatik, who won the Lok Sabha polls from Tikamgarh, was also sworn in as a Cabinet Minister on Sunday.
Khatik (70) is the senior most BJP MP from the state who represented the Sagar Lok Sabha constituency between 1996 and 2009, before winning four back-to-back elections from Tikamgarh, including in 2024.
Khatik is the brother-in-law of veteran BJP leader Gaurishankar Shejwar, who was a minister in former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Cabinet between 2013 and 2018.
Durgadas Uike (Betul)
Durgadas Uike (60) — a second-time MP from Betul — was sworn in as a Minister of State on Sunday.
Uike is a prominent tribal leader of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh who was a teacher before entering politics.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Uike defeated Congress’ Ramu Tekam by over 3 lakh votes. He had defeated Tekam in a close contest in the 2019 general elections as well.
Savitri Thakur (Dhar)
Savitri Thakur (46), who won her second Lok Sabha elections from Dhar after defeating Congress’ Radheshyam Muvel by over 2 lakh votes, has also been inducted in PM Modi’s Cabinet as a Minister of State.
She is one of the five women MPs who were elected to the Lok Sabha from Madhya Pradesh this time, all from the BJP.
Thakur has been associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for the past many years.
In 2014, the BJP fielded her against Congress’ Umang Singhar from Dhar, whom she defeated by over 1 lakh votes.
Despite being a sitting MP, Savitri Thakur was denied a ticket by the BJP in 2019, before she made a successful comeback in the 2024 polls.
(IANS)
