Madhya Pradesh 2023: BJP scores spectacular poll victory, cheetah safari launched

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh witnessed an intense political battle in 2023 culminating in the BJP trouncing Congress in the assembly polls while in Kuno National Park (KNP), a cheetah safari was launched with an aim to boost tourism.

The resounding saffron victory, however, also marked the end of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan era in state politics and the surprise rise of Mohan Yadav as the new leader at the helm.

The poor electoral performance prompted the Congress leadership to replace its state unit president Kamal Nath with young turk Jitu Patwari even though the latter lost the contest from his traditional Rau seat.

In KNP, cheetah safari was started, more than a year after the launch of the ambitious cheetah reintroduction programme, which allows tourists and wildlife enthusiasts to catch a glimpse of the fastest animal in action.

The year 2023 also saw the launch of the Ladli Behna Yojana under which a fixed monetary aid is deposited in the bank accounts of women in the state every month. The scheme launched by then CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is believed to have contributed to the BJP's victory among other factors.

Ahead of polls, a video of a suspected BJP worker urinating on a tribal man in Sidhi district caused a nationwide outrage.

Chouhan, who was at the helm at that time, rushed to contain the damage in the election year. He washed the feet of the victim by inviting him to his official residence under the lenses of cameras.

The accused identified as Pravesh Shukla was later arrested by the police.

In September, the rape and brutalisation of a 12-year-old girl sent shockwaves. Police arrested an autorickshaw driver after the victim was found in injured condition in Ujjain city. She later underwent a major surgery at an Indore hospital.

In the run-up to the assembly polls held in November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Pakaria village in Shahdol district in July and interacted with tribal leaders and others.

In August, the PM laid the foundation stone of a temple-cum-memorial, worth Rs 100 crore, dedicated to mystic poet and social reformer Sant Ravidas in Sagar district.

The latter half of 2023 witnessed hectic political activities with PM Modi hitting the hustings and offering "Modi's guarantees" to people.

A video of the then Congress chief Kamal Nath speaking about the "tearing clothes" of his colleague Digvijaya Singh during the distribution of tickets had also caused a flutter.

Riding on Modi's development plank and enhanced voter turnout of women, the saffron party not only retained power for a fifth term in a row, barring 15 months from December 2018 to March 2020, but also significantly improved its tally to 163, decimating the Congress to just 66 seats in the 230-member House.

BJP's "MP ke Man me Modi aur Modi ke Man me MP" seems to have struck a chord amid the perception of voter fatigue and anti-incumbency.

Amid speculation on Chouhan's political future against the backdrop of a robust poll victory, the BJP leadership sprang a surprise by picking three-time MLA from Ujjain, Mohan Yadav, as the new chief minister.

Yadav's elevation to the top post marked the end of the era of four-time CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who dominated the state's politics for close to two decades.

Yadav is the state's fourth OBC chief minister from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2003, after Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur and Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The new CM, who holds PhD, LLB and MBA degrees, is also known to possess sword-fighting skills. He is also the vice president of the Madhya Pradesh Olympic Association and president of the MP Wrestling Association.

The BJP picked Rajendra Shukla and Jagdish Devda as deputies of Yadav. Former Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar was unanimously elected as the speaker of the assembly after he won recent elections from the Dimani seat.

In the Congress camp, the appointment of Patwari as state unit chief and Umang Singhar as opposition leader signalled a generational change in the party in Madhya Pradesh, mainly dominated by satraps like Nath, Digvijaya Singh, and former union minister Suresh Pachori among others.

Both Patwari, an OBC leader, and newly-appointed opposition leader Singhar, a tribal, are believed to be close to Rahul Gandhi.

In KNP, one more African cheetah, named Pavan, was moved out of an enclosure and released, taking the number of big cats in the wild to four.

Pavan, translocated from Namibia last September, was released in the KNP's Nayagaon area which falls under the Peepalbaodi tourist zone.

Under the Cheetah Reintroduction Project, eight felines (five females and three males) were translocated from Namibia on September 17, 2022, and kept in enclosures at the KNP.

In February this year, 12 more cheetahs arrived at the KNP from South Africa. In March, four cubs were born to the Namibian cheetah, Jwala. So far, nine felines, including three cubs, have died due to various reasons.