Madhya Pradesh CM to be decided tomorrow: Who are the top contenders in the race?

The suspense over who will become the next chief minister of Madhya Pradesh is likely to end on Monday when the BJP's 163 newly-elected legislators meet and select their leader in the presence of central observers, a party functionary said.

In the November 17 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, the results of which were declared last Sunday, the BJP won as many as 163 of the 230 seats, leaving the Congress a distant second at 66.

The party on Friday appointed Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, its OBC 'Morcha' head K Laxman and its secretary Asha Lakra as central observers for electing the leader of its legislative party in Madhya Pradesh. "The central observers will chair a meeting of party MLAs on Monday," MP BJP media cell head Ashish Agrawal told PTI on Saturday.

The process of electing a Chief Minister has three stages - the candidate is finalised by the central leadership, then the BJP MLAs elect their leader and finally the party’s highest decision making body, the BJP Parliamentary board gives its approval.  

Top contenders for the Madhya Pradesh CM
Shivraj Singh Chouhan is the front-runner in the CM race. Tall BJP leaders like Kailash Vijayvargiya, Narendra Singh Tomar, Jyotiraditya Scindia are also in the fray.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan:

Shivraj Singh Chouhan (64) has taken a pole position in the race for the Cheif Minister of Madhya Pradesh after the sweeping victory in the elections fought under his leadership. He would break the record of the former and late West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu if elected as the CM for the fifth time. Basu served CM of WB for 23 years. Chauhan was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on 29 November 2005.

Shivraj Singh Chauhan was born on 5 March 1959. He completed his post graduation (Philosophy) from Barkatullah University, Bhopal with a gold medal. In 1975, he became the student union president of Adarsh ​​Higher Secondary School, Bhopal (Model Higher Secondary School). Opposed the Emergency and was detained in Bhopal jail in 1976-77. He organized movements to solve many public problems and went to jail several times. Has been a volunteer of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh since 1977. MP Chauhan has two sons.

Kailash Vijayvargiya

Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya (67) on Thursday (December 7) made a claim that the party will finalise the Chief Minister's name for Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh by today (December 10). Notably he had initially shown hesitance to be the Chief Minister of the state but later won in the polls.

Vijayvargiya hails from Indore and is a son of a worker, coming from a middle class family. Kailash Vijayvargiya joined RSS’s student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in 1975. He became the first directly elected mayor of Indore Municipal Corporation in 2000. Vijayvargiya has also served as the Commerce Industries & Employment, Information Technology, Science and Technology Minister in Madhya Pradesh from 2004 - 2008. Notably he has won the assembly elections in MP six times.

Narendra Singh Tomar

He also hails from Madhya Pradesh and has grown in the party through the ranks. A senior leader of BJP Tomar is the incumbent Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. He has been Minister of Rural Development, Minister of Panchayati Raj, Minister of Mines, and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs in the Government of India during different periods of the First and Second Modi ministry.

Union Minister Tomar was considered as the frontrunner for the post of CM in Madhya Pradesh, but his chances have been severely impacted by the controversies surrounding his son's videos that surfaced just ahead of the recently held assembly elections.

Jyotiraditya Scindia

Jyotiraditya Scidia could also be one of the contender for the CM as he played a very crucial role in BJP's victory in Madhya Pradesh.

He is currently serving as the Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Government of India. He has also been a five-term Member of Parliament, which includes four terms in the Lok Sabha (2002-04, 2004-09, 2009-14 & 2014-19), and the current term in the Rajya Sabha representing the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Scindia completed his schooling from the Doon School, Dehradun. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University, USA and an MBA degree from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, USA. Besides, Scindia has also worked at the United Nations, and as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.