little seems to have changed for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in spite of a change of guard at the Centre.
Madhya Pradesh's political and bureaucratic circles are both surprised and intrigued as why the Chief Minister has not changed his attitude towards the Union Government even after the formation of his own party's Government.He continues to function the same way writing letters to Narendra Modi regime drawing their attention towards state issues. On Sunday he wrote letters to four Union Ministers, and to two Union Ministers on Saturday. In these letters, he raised issues pertaining to Madhya Pradesh.
Soon after the formation of the BJP's government at Centre, under the leadership of Narendra Modi, Chouhan had claimed that this would help in the development of the State and the face of Madhya Pradesh would change.Notably, during the UPA regime at the Centre, the Chief Minister was engaged in writing letters to the Union Ministers quite frequently raising the issues pertaining to Madhya Pradesh and seeking their help.
Chouhan always alleged that the UPA Government at Centre hampered the development in BJP-ruled States and often accused the previous UPA Government at the centre of meting out a step-motherly treatment to his State.
However, even with a BJP government at the Centre, Chouhan resorts to a similar practice. In the past two days, he has written letters to five Union Ministers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Ministers Chouhan wrote to included Uma Bharti, Maneka Gandhi, Ramvilas Paswan, Sadanand Gauda and Prakash Javdekar.
Notably, soon after attending Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony, Chouhan had asked his Cabinet colleagues and officials to prepare a list of pending projects with the Centre. Chouhan was hopeful of an early clearance of the pending projects.Chouhan had asked the ministers to prepare the list in three days and take maximum advantage of the fact that a BJP-led Government is at the Centre.However, instead of sending the proposal directly to the Union Ministers and meeting them in that regard, Chouhan continues to write to Union Ministers as he used to during the UPA regime.
Official sources said the main reason behind writing letters to the Union Ministers, instead of meeting them personally, is that the Chief Minister is concentrating on his South Africa tour that is commencing on June 5.