NewDelhi: Rajendra Shukla, a five-time MLA from Rewa constituency, has been appointed as the Deputy Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh along with Jagdish Devda by the BJP. The decision comes as a recognition of Shukla’s contribution in consolidating the party’s base in the Vindhya region, which was once a Congress stronghold.
Shukla (59), who has an engineering background, has emerged as a prominent Brahmin leader in the region in the last 15 years. He has challenged the influence of former Congress stalwarts like (late) Arjun Singh and (late) Sriniwas Tiwari, who dominated the region until 2013.
In the recent Assembly elections, BJP won 25 out of 30 seats in the region, improving its tally from 24 seats in 2018. Shukla expressed his confidence in the party’s performance in the region before his name was announced for the Deputy CM post.
“In 2018, BJP had won 24 seats from Vindhya region; therefore, I had full confidence that we will repeat the same result. When the results came, the number went up from 24 to 25,” he told IANS.
Shukla’s rise in the party was not without obstacles. He faced opposition from some of his own party leaders, who tried to undermine him by bringing back his political rival Abhay Mishra into the BJP fold. However, Mishra later rejoined the Congress and won the election from Semaria seat of Rewa district, defeating Shukla’s loyalist K.P. Tripathi.
Shukla, however, remained a key member of the state BJP’s core committee, even when he was not included in Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s cabinet. He was the only MLA in the core committee, while the rest were either state or Union ministers or Rajya Sabha MPs. Shukla, a soft-spoken politician, earned popularity due to the development works he initiated in Rewa in the past two decades. He was instrumental in bringing an airport and the country’s largest solar project to Rewa, when he was the energy minister in Chouhan’s cabinet.
Shukla began his political career during his college days and became the president of Government Engineering College Student Union in 1986. He contested his first Assembly election in 1998, but lost to Congress candidate Pushparaj Singh by a narrow margin of 1,394 votes. He avenged his defeat in 2003, when he defeated Pushparaj Singh and entered the Assembly for the first time. Since then, he has remained undefeated.
Shukla was born on August 3, 1964 in MP’s Rewa. His father Bhaiyalal Shukla was a contractor and social worker. He pursued civil engineering and became the president of Government Engineering College Student Union in 1986.
Bureau Report
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