The Tightrope Walk

With A Slim Majority To Protect And Many Campaign Promises To Keep, The First-Time Chief Minister Faces Several Challenges.

- Rahul Noronha

In 1988, Arjun Singh, who had recently been appointed chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, had chosen Kharsia, a constituency in Raigarh district, now in Chhattisgarh, as the assembly segment he would contest the byelection from to gain entry into the House. To ensure that any stalled projects got executed before the election, Singh identified and transferred a team of offi­cers posted in the public health engineering, irrigation and public works departments in Chhindwara to Kharsia. Singh knew the best officers for the job would be in Chhindwara, as its then two­term MP, Kamal Nath, would have handpicked them for his Lok Sabha constituency. Singh went on to defeat Dilip Singh Judeo of the BJP.

Cut to 2018­19, and Kamal Nath, the newly ap­pointed chief minister of MP, now faces the onerous task of handpicking a team for his state. In his maiden foray into state politics, not only does Kamal Nath have to rise to the challenges on the administrative side, keeping in view the tall promises in the Congress manifesto, but also deliver for the party on the political front, with the Lok Sabha election a few months away. What exactly are these challenges and how is the new CM squaring up to them?