With the BJP winning 27 of the total 29 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, party leaders are looking for inclusion of at least three-four ministers from the State in Narendra Modi’s Cabinet.
The BJP’s spectacular win in Madhya Pradesh for the first time after the carving out of Chhattisgarh state from it has fuelled the aspirations of party leaders as well as people, party sources told PTI.
Among the probables from the State, Leader of the Opposition in the last Lok Sabha and Vidisha MP, Sushma Swaraj is the topmost contender for a Union Cabinet berth.
Eight-time MP from Indore Sumitra Mahajan is also a powerful contender.
State BJP President Narendra Singh Tomar’s claim is also strong as he along with Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan gifted 27 seats to Modi, who during his rallies prior to the Lok Sabha polls had urged people to send “maximum lotuses” from MP for a strong Central Government, the sources said.
Tomar won from the prestigious Gwalior seat with a margin of nearly 30,000 votes in a keenly contested election.
The name of parliamentary board member and Rajya Sabha MP, Thavarchand Gehlot, who was deputed by the party to select a successor to Modi in Gujarat, is also doing the rounds for a Cabinet berth. Gehlot hails from the Malwa-Nimad region and represented Shajapur Lok Sabha seat (now Dewas) for four terms, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2004, sources said.
Former Union Minister Faggan Singh Kulaste is also a contender. He was one of the BJP MPs who displayed wads of currency notes in connection with the cash-for-vote scam during the July 22, 2008 trust vote in the Lok Sabha. This time he has won the LS polls from Mandla, they said.
The name of former Union Minister Prahlad Patel, who won from Damoh LS seat, is also the doing rounds for inclusion in the Cabinet, the sources said.
“Though it is the prerogative of the Prime Minister, we are confident that under the leadership of Modiji, Madhya Pradesh will get due representation and the injustice being meted out to it since the last ten years of UPA rule will end soon,” the State BJP’s media in-charge Hitesh Bajpai told PTI.