Rajnath Singh, Arjun Munda, Manohar Lal Khattar to oversee CMs’ selection

NEW DELHI: Amid uncertainty over who will be picked for the CM post in three heartland states where BJP won comfortably in the recent assembly elections, the party on Friday appointed defence minister Rajnath Singh, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and tribal affairs minister Arjun Munda as central observers for election of legislature party leaders in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh respectively.
The meetings to elect them may take place in the next two-three days.
There is a view within the party that its leadership may usher in fresh faces at the helm in each of these states. Sources said the Madhya Pradesh legislature party meeting is scheduled on Monday and Chhattisgarh on Sunday. The meeting schedule for Rajasthan is yet to be finalised.
Singh will be joined by party vice president Saroj Pandey and its general secretary Vinod Tawde as observers for Rajasthan amid an intense buzz within BJP that the leadership will bring in a new leader, ignoring the claim of two-time former CM Vasundhara Raje.
The choice of Singh, one of the seniormost BJP leaders, is likely to help build a consensus around the leadership’s chief ministerial choice among MLAs, a number of whom are seen as supporting Raje.
Khattar will be joined by the party’s OBC Morcha head K Laxman and its secretary Asha Lakra for Madhya Pradesh legislature party meeting, while Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal and BJP general secretary Dushwant Kumar Gautam will be observers for Chhattisgarh along with Munda.
In MP, where BJP scored its biggest victory among the three states with a two-thirds majority, current Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s stock has gone up with the win but there is a view that the party leadership is looking at a leadership change after his 18-year uninterrupted stint in power except for 15 months after the 2018 assembly polls.
BJP is looking to hand over the reins to an OBC or tribal leader in Chhattisgarh, sources said, adding that ST leaders like Lata Usendi, Gomati Sai and Renuka Singh are natural contenders for the top job besides state party chief Arun Sao and bureaucrat-turned-politician O P Choudhary, both from backward castes.
The party would like to pick at least one woman CM at a time PM Narendra Modi has been highlighting women voters’ support to BJP and often speaking of the need for women-led development.
Two of the three observers for Chhattisgarh are from tribal communities while Gautam comes from the Scheduled Caste.