Madhya Pradesh: Scindia-Chouhan tug of war escalates

Tug of war between Jyotiraditya Scindia and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has escalated with allocation of portfolios to the newly sworn-in ministers proving a fresh bone of contention. Not satisfied with 11 out of his 22 supporters having been inducted in the cabinet last week, Scindia is batting to get important departments to them. The BJP high command also appears to be siding with the turncoat politician. The chief minister, who had a huge loss of face in the last Thursday’s cabinet expansion, is in a fix. The Congress is gloating over Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s predicament.

The chief minister on Tuesday returned to Bhopal after spending two days in New Delhi where he met top BJP leaders including Amit Shah and party president JP Nadda and of course, Jyotiraditya Scindia. He discussed with them division of departments among the newly sworn-in ministers. However, the parleys seem to have borne little fruits as the chief minister has deferred portfolio allocation.

“I will work out for two more days on allocation of departments," the chief minister told newsmen.

Taking a swipe at the chief minister on this issue, former chief minister Kamal Nath taunted, “this government is born out of a dealing. The cabinet was also result of a deal and now deal is going on for allocation of departments”.

Nearly 100 days after he took over as chief minister for a fourth time, Shivraj Singh Chouhan was finally allowed to expand his cabinet on July 2 after inducting 28 more ministers. Out of them 11 are Scindia supporters. It was surmised that the ministers might be allocated departments on the same night. But Scindia put his foot down on getting lucrative departments to his loyalists, much to the consternation of the chief minister.

Chouhan rushed to New Delhi to seek the high command’s support for working an agreement with Scindia on this matter. He was forced to extend his stay as a compromise remained elusive. Eventually, Chouhan returned on Tuesday morning without any agreement on department distribution in hand.

Now the ball is in the high command’s court. Scindia wants important departments such as urban development, PWD, commercial tax, excise and women and child development to be allocated to his supporters. The chief minister’ argument is that if he is forced to part with such key portfolios his authority will be severely eroded. Chouhan is keen to either keep many of these departments with him or distribute among old BJP ministers. The party high command is not favourably disposed to the chief minister’s desire.