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Jogi's
assumption of office would have been a smooth affair but for
the precarious state of the Congress(I) in the 90-member
Chhattisgarh Assembly. The Bharatiya Janata Party has 36
members and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) three. Within the
CLP, Jogi's supporters are fewer than those of the other
aspirants for the post. Of the 41 party MLAs who attended the
CLP meeting, only two-thirds |
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BORN in 1946 at Bongri-Gorela village of Bilaspur
division, Jogi, a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS)
officer, entered politics in the mid-1980s during the Rajiv
Gandhi administration. A strong contender for the post of
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister in 1993, Jogi then had the
backing of Congress(I) Working Committee (CWC) member Arjun
Singh. Since then he has tried to project himself as the
leader of the State's tribal people, albeit with limited
success. Jogi's claim to represent the Scheduled Tribes has
often been questioned by his critics, who allege that he
belonged to the Satnami caste, a Scheduled Caste. Jogi took
the civil services examination in 1970 under the general
category.
Jogi has often criticised Digvijay Singh's style of
functioning, and therefore it came as a surprise when the
latter canvassed support for him. Perhaps, Digvijay Singh was
helpless as party president Sonia Gandhi clearly told him when
he met her in New Delhi on October 29 that she was in favour
of Ajit Jogi becoming the Chief Minister of the new State.
Digvijay Singh, initially projected his loyalist and Madhya
Pradesh Minister Satyanarayan Sharma as the new Chief
Minister, claiming that it was not necessary for Chhattisgarh
to have a tribal person as the first Chief Minister. (In fact,
the Congress(I) never promised to make a tribal leader the
Chief Minister.) The names of former Uttar Pradesh Governor
Motilal Vora, who hails from Durg in Chhattisgarh , and
Mahendra Karma from Bastar were also mentioned as possible
candidates, in order to check the rise of Ajit Jogi.
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