Mohan Yadav to take oath as Madhya Pradesh CM on Wednesday; PM Modi likely to attend

Bhopal: Mohan Yadav will take oath as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh here on Wednesday, and elaborate arrangements are being made for the event, sources close to him said. The oath-taking ceremony will be held at the Lal Parade Ground in the state capital, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, among others, are likely to attend it, they told PTI.

"Elaborate arrangements are being made for the function, where a large number of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers, especially from Yadav's hometown Ujjain, will gather," a source said. Ending days of suspense, the BJP on Monday picked Yadav as the new chief minister of the state and denied party stalwart Shivraj Singh Chouhan a record fifth term in office. Yadav (58), a minister in the Chouhan government, was elected unanimously as the BJP legislative party leader during a meeting on Monday. The state will also have two deputy chief ministers - Rajendra Shukla and Jagdish Devda.

Senior BJP leader and newly-elected MLA Narendra Singh Tomar, who was among contenders for the CM's post, will be the new assembly speaker. Yadav, who was not being seen as a contender for the top post, is considered to be close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and hails from the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community, which accounts for more than 48 per cent of the state's population.

After he was named as the chief minister-designate on Monday, Yadav met Governor Mangubhai Patel and staked a claim to form the next government. Yadav was elected as an MLA from the Ujjain South seat for the first time in 2013. He retained the assembly seat in 2018 and again in 2023. In the last month's assembly elections, the BJP won 163 of the 230 assembly seats in the state, relegating the Congress to a distant second at 66.