Bhopal: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was there, BJP chief Amit Shah was present and so were the chief ministers of 18 BJP-ruled states. Even party partriach LK Advani came all the way to Gandhinagar to attend the oath taking ceremony of Vijay Rupani as Gujarat chief minister.
But one man was conspicous by his absence – Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Chouhan had left for Gujarat by the state plane early on Tuesday, but returned to MP without attending the glittering ceremony, raising eyebrows.
He gave flowers to Rupani and his deputy, Nitin Patel, at the venue where the ceremony was to take place but left before it started. When he reached Guna around 2pm, he was caught by mediapersons and asked about his absence from the ceremony.
“I had congratulated shri Vijay Rupani and the deputy chief minister and sought permission from party president Amit Shah for leaving the function,” he told reporters.
His reason? He had to attend two functions in Ashoknagar and Kolaras (Shivpuri) that he had committed to prior to the function in Gandhinagar. He said he had to attend another function in Bhopal in the evening. Any other meaning of the absence should not be drawn, he said.
But that has not stopped the speculation in political circles. Rumours are abuzz that the BJP top brass is considering a change of leadership in the state. The two places where Chouhan held public meetings on Tuesday are going to by-polls and the CM is desperate to hold on to the seats after losing Chitrakoot constituency to Congress.
The CM’s publicity managers also swung into action and shared a video of him addressing a public meeting in Piprai in Shivpuri in order to put the speculation to rest.
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