Bhopal: Like everyone present in the meeting of the newly elected 163 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs on December 11 in Bhopal, Mohan Yadav was stunned when the party’s central election observer and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced that three-time lawmaker from the Ujjain (South) seat is the party high command’s choice for the chief minister’s post.
Yadav was seated in the third row in the meeting when the announcement was made. “I was utterly surprised to hear that the party has given such a big responsibility to a small worker like me,” Yadav told the media after the meeting. It took a while for the import of the news to sink in.
Bafflement over election
The all-pervasive bafflement in the meeting was understandable. For, none of those present had the foggiest of idea that the party high command would prefer a district-level leader over an impressive array of claimants for the post who have spent decades carving out a niche for themselves in state politics.
Only the outgoing chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had prior information about the sensational development. Khattar had told Chouhan to propose the name of Mohan Yadav in their meeting half an hour ahead of the MLAs’ meeting.
This was the high command’s diktat. With a heavy heart, Chouhan followed the order even as half a dozen claimants such as Kailash Vijayvargiya, Narendra Singh Tomar, and Prahlad Singh Patel gloomily looked on.
Gloom, surprise, and suspense
A while later Union agriculture minister Tomar got a consolation prize in the form of the post of assembly speaker. But the other probables remained unlucky. Their disappointment deepened when it transpired in the meeting that the high command had deprived them of the post of deputy chief minister as well. For the two deputy chief minister posts, the names of Jagdish Devra (a Dalit) and Rajendra Shukla (a Brahmin) were announced in the meeting itself. The episode, marked by gloom, surprise, and suspense, lasted 45 minutes.
As soon as the news of Yadav having been picked up to fill in the big shoes of Chouhan spread everyone was stunned. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah are known for their penchant for springing surprises. But nobody had imagined that the element of surprise would stretch this far.
File photo. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah at the party’s Central Election Committee meeting for the Gujarat assembly elections in Delhi. Credit: Twitter/BJP4Gujarat
People everywhere – on the streets, in drawing rooms, in parks, on social and electronic media – could be spotted wrapping their heads around the big mystery as to what is so special in Yadav that the Modi-Shah duo chose him for the hotly contested post of the chief minister?
Also read: MP: BJP Names Mohan Yadav, an OBC Leader with RSS Roots, as the Next CM
Of course, it is common knowledge among MLAs that Yadav is considered very close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). His sharp rhetoric about Hindutva is also not a secret. But in a party where pouring scorns against Muslims has become par for the course, Yadav’s extreme views are not considered high enough qualification for the top job. Nor does his hailing from the Yadav community set him apart in a party in which 47 MLAs belong to OBCs.
A reality check
A section of the media, as usual, has been describing Yadav’s selection as BJP’s master stroke. However, the reality check doesn’t suggest so. The election doesn’t mark a generational transition if this is what the BJP would like the world to believe.
At 58, Yadav cannot be called young. Nor is he a face of generational change. His predecessor Chouhan is only six years older than Yadav. Chouhan was 46 years old when he became the chief minister in November 2005. Chouhan’s predecessor Uma Bharti was even younger (44) when she led the BJP to a spectacular victory in 2003. Also, Yadav’s educational qualifications – Ph.D, MBA, LLB, etc – do not make him a unique scholar among the MLAs given his antecedents.
Yadav’s political trajectory
On the parameter of organisational and parliamentary experience too, Yadav is no match to either Chouhan or Uma Bharti, his predecessors both of whom hailed from the OBC community.
Before assuming the office of the chief minister, Chouhan had been elected to the Lok Sabha five times between 1991 and 2005. In this period, he rose in the organisational ladder from state president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) to BJP national general secretary and state party chief. Uma Bharti had been a five-time MP and Union cabinet minister before she became the chief minister. Anyway, she was already a national leader, thanks to her role in the Ramjanambhoomi movement.
In contrast, Yadav’s organisational responsibilities in the BJP and its student and youth wings have been largely confined to the Ujjain district. His rise began with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). In 1982, he became the co-secretary of the student union of the Madhav Science College and became its president in 1984. The same year, he took charge as the city minister of the ABVP in Ujjain and became the department head in 1986.
In 1988, he was the co-minister of the ABVP’s Madhya Pradesh unit and a member of the national executive. In 1989-90, he became the minister of the ABVP, and in 1991-92, its national minister. In 1993-95, he was the co-area in-charge of the RSS in Ujjain city, while in 1997, he was a member of the BJP Yuva Morcha’s Madhya Pradesh working committee.
In 1999, he was the in-charge of the BJP Yuva Morcha’s Ujjain division. Between 2000 and 2003, he was the Ujjain district general secretary of the BJP, and in 2004, he was a member of the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh working committee.
Between 2004 and 2010, he was the chairman of the Ujjain Development Authority (with the rank of state minister). During 2011-2013, he was the chairman of the Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation, Bhopal (with the rank of cabinet minister).
He is a member of the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh working committee. During 2013-2016, he was the co-convener of the Akhil Bharatiya Sanskritik Prakoshth of the BJP.
He first became an MLA in 2013 from the Ujjain South seat and was elected again from the same seat in 2018 and 2023. Yadav was inducted into the Chouhan government as cabinet minister for higher education in 2020.
His political trajectory only barely touched the state level. Outside Ujjain, and possibly Malwa region, Yadav was unknown.
Not a pan-MP leader
In sharp contrast to Uma Bharti and Chouhan who have pan-Madhya Pradesh following, especially among OBCs, Yadav was never known to have any significant sway over these intermediary castes beyond Ujjain. He has not been associated at the state level with any Yadav caste outfits either.
Therefore, it defies comprehension as to how his elevation to the chief minister’s post will favourably impact the OBC vote banks in the Yadav-dominated Bihar and Uttar Pradesh for the BJP in the coming Lok Sabha election.
Caste dynamics in Madhya Pradesh are different from the two big northern states. In Madhya Pradesh, where Yadavs account for 12% of the total population, the BJP has already subsumed OBC identities under its Hindutva umbrella.
Anyway, Mohan Yadav is not the first chief minister in MP from the caste. Before him, Babulal Gaur, a Yadav, was in the post for 15 months in 2004-2005. He was unceremoniously ousted from the post.
A rich businessman
Another narrative being sought to be mounted by the BJP and its favoured media around Yadav is that the party has chosen a backward MLA from a humble background. Yadav was born in a small farmer family. His father ran a tea shop. But, today, he is a successful businessman with a considerable stake in real estate.
His assets witnessed an exponential growth from Rs 16 crore (2013) to 42 crore in 10 years of his being an MLA and minister. In the affidavit he submitted for the 2018 assembly election, Yadav declared his assets worth Rs 31 crore. The assets include land, too.
Controversies
His love for acquiring land landed Yadav in a controversy in July this year. It was alleged that at Yadav’s instance, the Ujjain administration changed the status of 50 out 148 hectares of land that was reserved for Simhastha, the regional congregation held every 12 years in Ujjain, from agricultural to residential.
A large chunk of the 50-hectare land is registered in the name of Yadav and his kin. The Congress party strongly opposed the government’s move. It accused Yadav of trying to pressurise the administration to earn huge profits from the change in land use. BJP MLA from Ujjain Paras Jain also joined the protest. In a core committee meeting in Ujjain over the master plan, Jain and Yadav had a strong altercation over the issue.
As the row snowballed in the media, outgoing CM Chouhan intervened and ordered the restoration of the status of the disputed land as agricultural from residential. The urban development department soon followed Chouhan’s order, much to the annoyance of Yadav.
That was not the only controversy Yadav got embroiled in. He was barred by the Election Commission of India from campaigning in the state by-polls for a day on October 31, 2020.
The commission reprimanded him for using “intemperate language transgressing the limits of decency”. Twenty-eight seats in Madhya Pradesh had gone for bypolls on November 3, 2020, following the fall of the Kamal Nath government after Jyotiraditya Scindia and his loyalist MLAs joined the BJP.
Addressing an election meeting in Ujjain, Yadav threatened the Congress with dire consequences, saying, “I am good for good people and bad for bad people.”
“If someone wrongs us, we will bury such people under the earth,” he was seen threatening in a viral video.
Yadav kicked up another controversy during the recent assembly election. A video went viral showing him using extremely foul language against party workers scuffling with him. The video was again in circulation on social media after he was elected leader of the BJP legislature party.
Communally sensitive Ujjain
Ujjain, from where Yadav hails, is known as a highly communally sensitive district. Communal tension between Hindus and Muslims often flares up.
A blue-eyed boy of the RSS, the CM-designate has thrived financially and politically by mouthing provocative language against Muslims. His strong pro-Hindutva stance brought him close to the Sangh. The RSS is said to have a major say in his election.
