BJP’s veteran leader and four-time Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was on Sunday sworn in as a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Union Cabinet.
The 65-year-old BJP leader was administered oath by President Droupadi Murmu at the swearing-in ceremony at the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan.
Narendra Modi took oath as Prime Minister for the third consecutive time. Chouhan became the Union cabinet minister for the first time in his more than three-decade-long political career.
In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and Chouhan campaigned extensively for the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, where the party won all 29 Lok Sabha seats.
Chouhan won the Vidisha seat by a record margin of 8,21,408 votes in the general elections 2024 on Tuesday, according to the Election Commission of India.
The BJP leader received a massive mandate of 11,16,460 votes, while Congress’s Pratap Bhanu Sharma stood at second place and managed to get 2,95,052 votes.
Chouhan was born on March 5, 1959, in Jait village, Sehore to Prem Singh Chouhan and Sundar Bai Chouhan. He has a long association with the RSS and the student wings of the BJP.
Chouhan was first elected to the State Assembly from Budhni Constituency in 1990. He was elected a Member of Parliament for the first time in his career in 10th Lok Sabha from Vidisha Constituency in the following year.
In 1996, he was re-elected to the 11th Lok Sabha for his second term. From 1996 to 1997, he served on the Committee on Urban and Rural Development and the
Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, as well as the General Secretary of the BJP in Madhya Pradesh.
In 1998, he was re-elected to the 12th Lok Sabha (third term). From 1998 to 1999, he served on the Committee on Urban and Rural Development’s Subcommittee on the Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment.
He served his fourth term in the 13th Lok Sabha, beginning in 1999. From 1999 to 2000, he served on the Agriculture Committee, the Public Undertakings Committee, and as National President of the Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha from 2000 to 2003. He was also the Chairman of the House Committee (Lok Sabha) and the National Secretary of the Bhartiya Janata Party.
The BJP swept Madhya Pradesh in the December 2003 assembly elections. Shivraj Singh ran in the Raghogarh elections against the incumbent Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh but lost.
Chouhan, the state BJP president, was appointed as Madhya Pradesh’s Chief Minister in 2005.
He resigned as Chief Minister on December 12, 2018, following his failure to win a majority in the 2018 Madhya Pradesh assembly election. He took the oath as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh again on March 23, 2020, after 22 Congress MLAs, including Jyotiraditya Scindia, resigned, causing the Kamal Nath administration to collapse. As of December 2023, Chouhan is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s longest-serving chief minister.
(ANI)