Shivraj Singh Chouhan: A Semicentennial RSS Safari

Shivraj Singh Chouhan: Fifty-one years as a steadfast labourer of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a sixteen-year long Chief Ministership of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh… What the 64-year-old, incumbent CM of Madhya Pradesh engulfed in his life journey is an extended narrative. But did he met some struggles as the opposition party Congress hit the state exceptionally well during the campaigns for the concluded 2023 Madhya Pradesh Assembly Elections?

Several controversial claims are here and there and the BJP was shaken bit at their fortress this time. But all need to wait till December 3, the counting day, to know how the ups and downs resulted in the vote statistics. Shivraj Singh Chouhan is also in huge expectation to resume his power, even though BJP’s Chief Ministerial candidature for the election lied in ambiguity. Meanwhile he also expressed his willingness to discharge whatever duties he will be assigned by the party.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the sitting and longest serving Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh was born on March 5, 1959, to Prem Singh Chauhan and Sunderbai Chauhan in Sehore. He belongs to the Kirar community and was a gold medallist in MA Philosophy from the Barkatullah University of Bhopal.

Shivraj Chouhan joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in 1972, as a 13-year-old and is an active volunteer of RSS since 1977. He was also sent to prison after opposing the Emergency announced by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the time period of 1976-77. He was the Organisation minister of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad from 1977 to 1978, and also served as the joint minister of Madhya Pradesh of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad from 1975 to 1980, and became the State General Secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in 1980–1982.

It was in 1990, Shivraj Chouhan got elected as a Member of Legislative Assembly for the first time in 1990 from his own constituency, Budhni. In 1991, he became an MP (Member of Parliament) from Vidisha constituency. He got married to Sadhna Singh in 1992, and it was in the same year Shivraj Chauhan got appointed as the General Secretary to BJP, which he served until 1994. He was also a member of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Human Resource Development from 1992 to 1996, Labor and Welfare Committee from 1993 to 1996, and Hindi Advisory Committee from 1994 to 1996.

Mr Chauhan was re-elected as an MP in 1996, 1998, 1999, and 2004 from the Vidisha constituency and appointed as the state president of BJP in 2005. In the same year, he became the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for the first time. He has reserved the office since then, barring an 18-month period between 2018 and 2020 when the Congress was in power. In the 2018 election, INC’s Kamal Nath was chosen as the state Chief minister. But in 2020, Madhya Pradesh witnessed a political overturn as Mr Chouhan took oath as the Chief Minister of the state once again (for the fourth time) on March 23 after 22 Congress MLAs resigned along with Jyotiraditya Scindia, resulting in the collapse of the Kamal Nath government.

Over the time, Shivraj Chouhan encouraged his vote margin substantially. In 2005, he won by a margin of over 36,000 votes and in 2008, the vote margin rose to 41,000. For his third term, in 2013, he sworn from Budhni by the margin of 84805 from a candidate of Congress.