Vishnu Deo Sai, BJP’s tribal face in Chhattisgarh, was selected on Sunday to be the next state CM by the BJP central leadership.
Chhattisgarh New Chief Minister: The swearing-in ceremony of Chhattisgarh’s new Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai will take place on 13 December. Along with him, two deputy chief ministers will also take the oath to the office, say the reports.
Vishnu Deo Sai, BJP’s tribal face in Chhattisgarh, was selected on Sunday to be the next state CM by the BJP central leadership. This also marked the end of the uncertainty over who would become the chief minister of the state.
Earlier on Sunday, a key meeting of the newly-elected 54 MLAs of the BJP was held in Raipur where the announcement of Vishnu Deo Sai as the next Chhattisgarh Chief Minister was made.
The BJP dislodged Congress in the recently concluded Chhattisgarh Assembly elections by winning 54 out of the total 90 seats.
Former BJP Chhattisgarh Chief Vishnu Deo Sai has been elected from the Kunkuri Assembly seat in north Chhattisgarh, a region the BJP swept. He was the BJP Chhattisgarh chief from 2020 to 2022 and has held various offices, including Union Minister of State for Steel in the First BJP-led central government and was the Member of Parliament for the Raigarh constituency of Chhattisgarh in the 16th Lok Sabha.
“I am very happy that Vishnu Deo Sai will be the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. This is the first time a party worker from the tribal community belonging to a farmer’s family has been elected as the CM,” said BJP leader and Union Minister Renuka Singh Saruta.
Sai hails from the influential Sahu (Teli) community which has a sizable presence in the Durg, Raipur, and Bilaspur divisions and is highly regarded among the tribal voters.
Elections in Chhattisgarh were held in two phases, with the first on November 7 featuring 223 candidates and the second with 958 candidates on November 17.
The counting of votes was conducted on 3 December in which out of the total 90 assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh, the BJP bagged 54 while the Congress won 35.
Vishnu Deo becomes Chhattisgarh’s second tribal chief minister after Ajit Jogi. He has served as the Union Minister of State for Steel in the first Cabinet of PM Modi and has won four consecutive Lok Sabha elections from the Raigarh constituency from 1999 to 2014 though he was not given a ticket for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Sai began his political career as a member of the Madhya Pradesh assembly between 1990-98 before Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh.
In the just-concluded assembly election in Chhattisgarh 2023, Vishnu Deo Sai won from north Chhattisgarh’s Kunkuri constituency defeating UD Minj, the sitting Congress MLA.
Sai was born in Jashpur. Before joining politics, he was an agriculturist by profession.