Senior Congress legislators NP Prajapati and KP Singh have been excluded from the State cabinet in Madhya Pradesh. It is being speculated that Ptajapati would be made Speaker of the State assembly.
It was expected that these two senior legislators would be included in the cabinet, but to the surprise of many, both the leaders were not seek at the ceremony. KP Singh is considered from the camp of senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Besides, it was believed that former Leader of the Opposition in the State assembly Ajay Singh would get place in the cabinet, despite the fact that he has lost the assembly election from his ancestral Churhat constituency. However, he was found missing from the leaders who were sworn in on Tuesday.
The list of 28 ministers who were about to take oath on Tuesday, was out in a few newspapers in the morning. Probably, due to this, Singh did not attend the oath taking ceremony. Besides, senior Congress leader Suresh Pachouri, who lost to BJP leader Surendra patwa from Bhojpur constituency in the assembly elections, also distanced himself from the ceremony. This has led to speculations, that Ajay Singh and Suresh Pachouri are annoyed with the chief minister. However, seeing the stature of these two leaders, party leaders feel they would certainly get adjusted somewhere soon.
There are also talks that the Congress party would also appoint parliamentary secretaries and around a dozen party leaders could be accommodated this way, by according State minister status to the parliamentary secretaries.