Meet the nine new Chhattisgarh ministers: BJP includes three first-time MLAs

Four of the new ministers are from Surguja division where the BJP won all 14 seats. Three ministers are from Bilaspur division, two each from Raipur and Durg divisions and one from Bastar division. The lawmakers who took oath on Friday include eight-term MLA Brijmohan Agrawal, senior party leaders and former ministers Ramvichar Netam, Kedar Kashyap and Dayaldas Baghel. IAS-turned-politician O P Choudhary, Tank Ram Verma and Laxmi Rajwade, all first-time MLAs, and second-time legislators Shyam Bihari Jaiswal and Lakhanlal Dewangan have also been appointed as ministers.

Brijmohan Agrawal (64): An eight-time MLA from Raipur City South, Agrawal is the longest-serving MLA in Chhattisgarh. He won by a record margin of 67,719 votes. He was a Cabinet minister from 2003-2018 in the former Raman Singh government. He holds MCom, MA and LLB degrees.

O P Choudhary (42): He is a former IAS officer who served as a collector in Chhattisgarh. He quit his profession to join politics and unsuccessfully contested the 2018 election from Kharsia, a Congress stronghold. He holds a BSc (Maths) degree. An OBC leader, Choudhary won the recent Assembly election from Raigarh seat by a margin of over 60,000 votes. He was the state general secretary of the BJP.

Kedar Kashyap (49): He is a prominent tribal leader of the party from the Bastar region in south Chhattisgarh. Kashyap defeated Congress’s sitting MLA Chandan Kashyap from Narayanpur constituency by a margin of 19,188 votes. A four- term MLA, Kashyap had served as a minister twice in the Raman Singh-led BJP government in 2008 and 2013. He led the BJP’s onslaught against the previous Congress regime over the issue of religious conversion in the Bastar region, an issue that helped the BJP put up a good show in the elections. He is the son of BJP stalwart and former MP late Baliram Kashyap.

Ram Vichar Netam (61): He is a prominent face from the Gond tribal community in the state. He hails from the northern tribal belt of the Surguja division. A two-time minister and a six-time MLA, Netam won Ramanujganj seat by a margin of over 29,000 votes against Congress’s Ajay Tirkey. He was also a Member of Parliament in 2016 and was the Pro-tem Speaker of the recently elected Assembly. In the BJP, he was the national head of its tribal wing.

Shyam Bihari Jaiswal (47): A leader from the OBC community, Jaiswal won the Manendragarh constituency by defeating Congress’s Ramesh Singh Vakil. He is a rice miller by profession and holds a BSc (chemistry) degree. In the BJP he worked as a district committee member (2013-2020) and then as state in-charge for the farmers’ wing (2020-2022). He is also a former district secretary and district in-charge of the party’s youth wing. From 2009 to 2013, he was the vice chairman of Janpath Panchayat and was elected from Manendragarh in 2013 too. He lost the Assembly election from the seat in 2018.

Lakhan Lal Dewangan (61): He is a former MLA from Katghora (2013). Dewangan comes from the OBC community and has been a former secretary in the BJP and the district head of the OBC wing in Korba. In 2018, he lost the election from Katghora. He has studied up to BA first year. Dewangan defeated Congress’s Jaisingh Agrawal from Korba by a margin of 25,629 votes.

Laxmi Rajwade (31): She is the youngest MLA and the only woman member in the state Cabinet. Rajwade has been chosen over more experienced women in BJP like former Union minister Renuka Singh, former MP Gomati Sai and former Cabinet minister Lata Usendi. Rajwade comes from the OBC community. She is a farmer by profession and won the polls from the Bhatgaon constituency in north Chhattisgarh by a margin of over 43,000 votes. She defeated sitting Congress legislator Parasnath Rajwade. In 2011, she was treasurer in divisional women wing of the BJP and in 2015 she was a Janpad member. In 2020, she was a zilla panchayat member.

Tank Ram Verma (61): A former deputy chairman in zilla panchayat in Baloda Bazar, Verma holds a master’s in sociology and an LLB degree. An OBC leader and a farmer by profession, Verma won the Baloda Bazar seat by defeating Congress’s Shailesh Nitin Trivedi by a margin of over 14,000 votes.

Dayaldas Baghel (69): He comes from the SC community and is a farmer by profession. Baghel was a Cabinet minister in 2010. He was also a former zilla panchayat member. In the BJP, he has been an executive member at the divisional and district level.