Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will expand his cabinet on Saturday morning with the induction of three to four ministers, the move coming just months ahead of Assembly polls at the end of the year.
The swearing-in ceremony will take place at 8:45am, a Raj Bhavan official told PTI late Friday night.
The names of ex-ministers Rajendra Shukla, a Brahmin leader and MLA from Rewa in the Vindh region, and Gaurishankar Bisen, legislator from Balaghat in the Mahakoshal region and chairman of the MP Backward Class Commission, have almost been finalised for induction in the cabinet, a BJP leader said.
Mr Shukla and Mr Bisen have reached Bhopal.
Deliberations are on between Shivraj Singh Chouhan and senior party functionaries on the names of Rahul Singh Lodhi and Jalam Singh, both from the Other Backward Classes that form 45 per cent of the state's population, he said.
The name of former state minister Lalsingh Arya, who is the president of the BJP SC Morcha, is also doing the rounds for a ministerial berth.
Mr Lodhi, a first-time MLA from Khargapur in Tikamgarh district in the Bundelkhand region, is the nephew of senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister Uma Bharti.
Jalam Singh, the MLA from Narsinghpur in the Mahakoshal region, is the younger brother of Union Minister Prahlad Patel.
Currently, the state has 31 ministers, including the Chief Minister, while the figure can go up to 35, or 15 per cent of the strength of the state Assembly, which has 230 members.
The last expansion of the Chouhan cabinet took place in January 2021.
According to party insiders, the expansion is being done on the recommendation of the BJP's central leadership to beat any anti-incumbency, balance caste equations and address regional aspirations.
Manish Gupta, resident editor of a leading Hindi daily, said anti-incumbency is palpable in Mahakoshal, Vindh and Bundelkhand regions of eastern Madhya Pradesh.
The BJP had put up a good show in Vindh and Bundelkhand regions in the 2018 polls, but its performance was below par in Mahakoshal, he said.
Representation of MLAs from Mahakoshal and Vindh was negligible in the cabinet, he said.
"People are feeling their regions have been neglected as far as cabinet representation is concerned. Inclusion of MLAs from Mahakoshal and Bundelkhand in the ministry would prove useful for the BJP in the Assembly polls," Mr Gupta claimed.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan became the Chief Minister in March 2020 after a revolt by MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia brought down the then Congress government under Kamal Nath, which had come to power in December 2018 after the Assembly polls.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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