Hectic parleys in BJP units to pick CMs in heartland states

Jaipur: Hectic lobbying and back-to-back meetings to name the chief ministerial picks for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh began in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday, a day after the party recorded a thumping victory in the three heartland states.

According to people familiar with the matter, the BJP brass has been holding back-to-back meetings with state units since the results were finalised late on Sunday, but no decision has yet been made on holding the legislative party meetings to that effect.

“The BJP brass will soon be appointing observers to oversee meetings of newly elected MLAs of the party in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where they will elect their leaders. However, no date has been given for the legislative party meeting, so far,” a leader familiar with the developments said, requesting anonymity.

Across the three states, the BJP contested the elections without a chief ministerial candidate with Prime Minister Narendra Modi having led the campaign. The decision to not field a CM face in Madhya Pradesh, and instead project a united state leadership, was the first time in three decades that the party did not field a candidate for the top position.

In Rajasthan, where the BJP won 115 of the 199 seats on Sunday, the party leadership held a series of meetings with its units in Jaipur and Delhi even as former chief minister and a possible contender for the CM post, Vasundhara Raje, met around 30 of the newly elected MLAs at her residence in Jaipur.

“We have come to seek blessings of the senior-most party leader in the state and congratulate her for the victory,” said party leader Shankar Singh Rawat, who won from the Beawar assembly seat.

Two-time chief minister Raje (70), who campaigned aggressively for the party, has been the BJP’s face in Rajasthan for the last two decades and a five-time Parliament member. A BJP national vice-president, Raje is seen as an able administrator but one who has had frequent run-ins with the party’s top leadership.

Another leading contender is Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. The BJP’s Rajput face, Shekhawat, 56, shot to fame after defeating Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s son, Vaibhav, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Jodhpur. Shekhawat is considered close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the party’s top leadership.

A third leading candidate for CM is Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, a former bureaucrat. Known to enjoy Modi’s confidence, Meghwal is a three-time parliamentarian and one of the Dalit faces in Rajasthan. Meghwal, 69, is known to keep a low profile and is considered a good administrator.

Two-time parliamentarian from Chittorgarh, CP Joshi, too, is considered among the contenders. In 2019, he won the Lok Sabha elections by the margin of 576,000 votes, defeating Gopal Singh Shekhawat of Congress. He is considered close to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, who may be in reckoning in the run for the CM’s post as well, if the party prefers a senior leader like him.

On Monday, Rajasthan in-charge Arun Singh and Joshi held a meeting with BJP general secretary (organisation) Chandrashekhar at the BJP office in Jaipur. After the meeting, Singh and Joshi left for Delhi, while Chandrashekhar called on RSS regional head Nimbaram in Jaipur, a state leader aware of the matter said.

In Delhi, Joshi and Singh called on state in charge Pralhad Joshi, BJP national general secretary BL Santhosh and Union home minister Amit Shah, the leader added.

In Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP scored a massive victory staving off anti-incumbency, a high-level meeting is likely to be held in Delhi to discuss the name of the next chief minister, a senior leader familiar with the matter said.

Earlier in the day, newly elected MLA from Narsinghpur seat and Union minister Prahlad Patel called on Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP national president JP Nadda in the Capital. BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya also met Nadda in Delhi.

“A meeting of the BJP’s national general secretaries will also take place on Tuesday where Vijayvargiya will be present,” the leader quoted above said.

Meanwhile, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan met MLAs in Bhopal and congratulated them for winning the elections.

In Chhattisgarh, the state BJP unit called a meeting of the new MLAs in the morning, only to cancel it a few hours later. A senior party leader aware of the matter said the meeting is expected to be held on Tuesday.

“It will be an introductory meeting of the new MLAs in which senior BJP leaders would be present but not the legislative party meeting,” he said.

Meanwhile, senior leaders of the party Dr Raman Singh, Arun Sao, OP Choudhary and Vishnu Deo Sai — all top contenders to helm the state — held consultations with the BJP top brass in New Delhi.

Three time chief minister Raman Singh (71), who ruled over the state from 2003 to 2018, is among the top contenders for the chief ministerial post. A former union minister, Singh took over after the BJP beat the Ajit Jogi led Congress in 2003, and quickly became known as “chawal wale baba ‘’, strengthening the state’s public distribution system. He was in power for fifteen straight years before anti-incumbency caught up with him, and the BJP crashed to 15 seats in 2018.

Arun Sao (54), who began his political career as a volunteer of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, is another prominent face of the party who was made state party president in November 2022. Sao may be in the running because he is a Sahu, the most influential of OBC communities that have moved decisively to the BJP.

A dark horse candidate for the post of chief minister is former IAS officer turned politician OP Choudhary who fought the elections from Raigarh and won with a record margin of 64,000 votes. A “son of the soil”, Choudhary is from the Agharia caste, an influential OBC group in rural Chhattisgarh, and has been seen as a future leader for the BJP.

If the BJP wants to pick a tribal face as its chief minister, rewarding a clear tribal shift towards the BJP by the community, one option before the leadership is 59-year-old Vishnu Dev Sai, former union minister of state and Chhattisgarh BJP president.

(With inputs from correspondents in Bhopal and Raipur)