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Journalism of Courage
Vishnu Deo Sai on Wednesday took oath as the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh at an event in Raipur in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where Arun Sao and Vijay Sharma were sworn in as the Deputy CMs.
While Sai was named as the CM on December 10, Sao and Sharma were not officially declared as the Deputy CMs until this swearing-in ceremony even though their names were doing the rounds for the post.
Here is a look at the two new Deputy CMs of the state.
Chhattisgarh BJP president Arun Sao, 55, belongs to the influential Sahu (Teli) OBC community. He started his political career in college as a volunteer of the RSS’ students wing ABVP.
A Lok Sabha MP, Sao had replaced Sai as the state BJP chief in 2022. He had aggressively attacked the erstwhile ruling Congress, alleging that the party was behind the murder of some BJP workers, who were killed by Naxals. He had raised the issue in the Lok Sabha too.
Born and raised in Mungeli, Sao followed the footsteps of his father, senior RSS leader Abhyram Sao, into the Sangh. He is a lawyer by profession and has also served as the deputy advocate general in the Chhattisgarh High Court.
Sao gradually rose through the BJP ranks. Despite holding a senior position in the ABVP, he continued to work as a booth-level party worker. He was later appointed as the deputy chief of the BJP’s youth wing BJYM in the state.
He made his electoral debut in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Bilaspur and trumped his nearest rival, the Congress’s Atal Srivastava, by over 1.4 lakh votes.
In the recent Assembly elections, Sao was among the four MPs fielded by the BJP and won from Lormi, defeating Thaneshvar Sahu of the Congress by over 45,000 votes.
According to his election affidavit, he has no criminal cases against him and has assets worth Rs 1.6 crore.
First-time BJP MLA Vijay Sharma, 50, is seen to be the Hidutva face of the BJP in the state. He was arrested in connection with the 2021 communal violence case of Kawardha and spent several days in judicial custody before being released on bail.
He was fielded by the BJP from Kawardha in this election, where he defeated sitting MLA and minister Mohammad Akbar of the Congress by around 30,000 votes. Akbar had won the seat in 2018 by a margin of over 59,000 votes, the highest in that election.
Ahead of the election, Sharma had told The Indian Express, “The biggest issue is the politics of Akbar due to which people are living in fear and terror. They (Congress) have misused the law though he is law minister. People have called me and said they will support me. The biggest public issue of Kawardha is its fight for self-respect and a war of liberation to end terror. It never saw curfew, use of tear gas. So many people went to jail while many others were lathi charged.”
Sharma holds a Masters in Computer Application (MCA) degree along with a diploma in English. He is currently a BJP general secretary. His political journey began in 1989 when he became an ABVP member. In 2016, he was appointed as the state BJYM president.
Sharma’s electoral career began as a Zilla Panchayat member in Kabirdham in 2020, prior to which his wife served in the same position.
He had been a lecturer in three colleges, including an engineering college, and had worked in two companies in the telecom sector.
Sharma has a farming business. He has played cricket at state-level and his other hobbies include poetry writing.
