Congressman-turned-BJP leader Ramniwas Rawat on Monday became a minister in the Dr Mohan Yadav led BJP government of Madhya Pradesh twice in a matter of 15 minutes.
The faux pas occurred when Rawat was first administered the oath as a minister of state at around 9.05 AM at the Governor House in Bhopal by MP Governor Mangubhai Patel.
Shortly after, Rawat realised that he had taken oath as a minister of state. He pointed it out to Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav.
Subsequently, Rawat took another oath at around 9.20 AM. This time he was sworn in as a cabinet minister. Nonetheless, till then Rawat had not resigned as a minister of state, for which he was sworn in 15 minutes ago. Also, sources said that Rawat was officially still a Congress MLA at the time of the swearing in, as he had not yet resigned from his Congress MLA post in the State Assembly either.
Rawat is a six-time MLA from the Vijaypur assembly seat in Sheopur district. He is one of the seniormost Congress leaders of MP. He was the working President of the State Congress too.
However, despite winning as MLA from the Vijaypur seat continuously for the sixth time in the 2023 Assembly polls, Rawat was sidelined by the Congress and since then he was unhappy.
He finally joined the BJP on 30 April. His move to the BJP played a significant role in the BJP’s easy win at the Morena seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, as it is assumed that Rawat took more than 40,000 votes with him being with the BJP.
This was the first expansion of the Mohan Yadav government in seven months of its formation.
The number of ministers has gone up to 31 from 30. The number of cabinet ministers has increased to 19 from 18. There are 12 ministers of state.
Three ministerial berths are still vacant, as there can be a maximum of 34 ministers in the state government.
The opposition Congress reacted sharply to the bizarre events in the oath-taking procedure.
MP Congress spokesperson Avneesh Bundela charged that such a mistake has never occurred in the past anywhere in the country.