CM expands cabinet, inducts 3 more ahead of polls in MP

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Saturday expanded his cabinet and inducted three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs - Gauri Shankar Bisen, Rajendra Shukla, and Rahul Lodhi, into his council of ministers.

- Shruti Tomar

Governor Mangubhai Patel administered the oath of office as minister to the three legislators at Raj Bhavan on Saturday morning. The expansion comes months ahead of the state assembly polls scheduled for later this year. While Bisen and Shukla were administered oaths of office and secrecy as cabinet ministers, Lodhi was inducted as a minister of state.

Bisen is a former state agriculture minister, a seven-time MLA from Balaghat, and the chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Backward Class Commission. He is from the Mahakaushal region, an area where Congress won 24 seats out of 38 in 2018 assembly election. Bisen recently conducted a Ram Katha in Balaghat, involving spiritual leader Dhirendra Shastri, and saw a massive crowd for the event. He is a member of the OBC community.