Prahlad Singh Patel: Is He The Chief Ministerial Candidate Of Madhya Pradesh?
From the Lower House of the Parliament to the State Assembly… Madhya Pradesh State Assembly Election 2023 was really crucial for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and in a critical move they have fielded their senior leader and the five-time MP Prahlad Singh Patel from the constituency of Narsinghpur. Mr Patel is also the incumbent Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Jal Shakti of India in the second Narendra Modi candidate and is one among the three cabinet ministers fielded by the BJP for the 2023 Madhya Pradesh Elections.
With Prahlad Singh Patel, four other BJP MP’s were also contested. The party kept a mist around its Chief Ministerial candidate this time and didn’t declare its longest serving Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for the position. Along with Narendra Singh Tomar, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Kailash Vijayvargiya, Prahlad Singh Patel’s name was also in the forefront as the “mysterious” Chief Minister candidate.
He is one among the seven MPs and three Union Ministers contesting the state polls this year. The polling according the Central Election Commission was scheduled on November 17. The votes will be counted and the results will be declared on December 3, 2023.
Prahlad Singh Patel was born on June 28, 1960 in Narsinghpur and is an advocate by profession. He was graduated from the Government Science College, Jabalpur. He belongs to the Lodhi Community, the group known as agriculturalists, who are by-history emigrated from Uttar Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is an OBC (Other Backward Class) fortress and Lodhi is one among them, even though they claim Rajput ties and prefer to be known as “Lodhi-Rajput’s”.
Prahlad Singh Patel was first elected to the 9th Lok Sabha in 1989. He was re-elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996, and 13th Lok Sabha in 1999 from Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat. Balaghat is one of the 29 Lok Sabha constituencies in Madhya Pradesh and covers the entire Balaghat districts and a few parts of Seoni district. Securing the fourth term, he went to the Lok Sabha from the Damoh constituency in 2014 and retained the seat in 2019. Damoh covers the entire Damoh district and parts of Sagar and Chhatarpur districts.
His entry to the 13th Lok Sabha in 1999 was a pivotal moment in his career – during a cabinet reshuffle under then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he was made the minister of state for coal in 2003. He held the position for a year, until the National Democratic Alliance was voted out and the United Progressive Alliance won in 2004.
After winning the 2019 elections, his second term from the Damoh constituency, the five-time MP Prahlad Singh Patel Patel once again got positioned in the cabinet as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Culture and Tourism. He is currently the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Jal Shakti of India from July 7, 2021. He was known for introducing a private bill in the Parliament for banning cow slaughter, in 2000.
Introduction of Prahlad Singh Patel from the Union Ministry to the Madhya Pradesh State Assembly Elections was a crucial tactics of BJP. The BJP had been in power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003 but lost to the Congress in 2018. But in a critical move the Congress government led by Kamal Nath lost power after senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia rebelled and joined the opposition party with over 20 MLAs.
