Chouhan 4th time lucky; to be sworn in Madhya Pradesh CM

BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be sworn in as Madhya Pradesh chief minister for the fourth time at 9 pm on Monday. He was elected state BJP Legislature Party leader here in the evening.

The legislature party members - wearing masks due to coronavirus threat and sitting two chairs away from each other - unanimously elected Chouhan as their leader. The BJP's central observers Arun Singh and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe joined the meeting via video conferencing from Delhi.

Senior BJP MLA and ex-leader of opposition Gopal Bhargava proposed the name of Chouhan as legislature party leader, which was endorsed by Vijay Shah, Meena Singh, Paras Jain and other MLAs. After this process, Arun Singh announced Chouhan's name as leader of BJP legislature party.

Chouhan, who thanked the MLAs, accused the outgoing Congress dispensation of "ruining" the state, and said he would change the way of running the government from now. Calling fighting the coronavirus as his top priority, Chouhan said, "We will defeat this disease." "We will improve our governance....the shortcomings so far will be removed," he said.

He said he will go to Mantralaya (state secretariat) after taking oath and sit till late night to review measures taken to deal with the novel coronavirus outbreak..