Eight days after the declaration of Assembly election results paved the way for the return of the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Madhya Pradesh for another term, the party is set to end the suspense over its chief ministerial pick which has several top leaders, including four-time CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the reckoning. The legislature party meeting of the BJP is scheduled to begin at 8 AM today in Bhopal where the newly-elected party MLAs will elect their new leader.

The development follows the appointment of Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, party’s OBC Morcha chief K Laxman and general secretary Asha Lakra as the central observers for the state last week. News agency PTI reports that the three leaders are expected to arrive in the state capital at around 11 AM today.

The past week has been abuzz with speculation over the BJP’s chief ministerial picks in three Hindi heartland states — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — where the party won in the recently-concluded five-state state elections. While the suspense ended in Chhattisgarh on SUnday with the announcement of senior tribal leader Vishnu Deo Sai as the Chief Minister-designate, the two other states remain on tenterhooks.

In the reckoning in MP is Chouhan, a four-time Chief Minister whose women- and farmer-friendly schemes are credited for much of the BJP’s success in the state in this election. The party won a staggering 163 of the 230 Assembly seats, up 54 seats from its earlier tally, and second only to BJP’s 2003 tally of 173 that saw Uma Bharti appointed as the CM.

Also Read: Lessons from Madhya Pradesh

Chouhan, however, remained relegated to the sidelines all through the campaign with much of the focus on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his “guarantees”, a recurring theme across the state elections last month. With the party making it clear that Chouhan was not its obvious choice — he wasn’t declared CM candidate — three union ministers, four MPs and a party general secretary jumped into the fray.

In a cryptic tweet on Saturday, Chouhan hinted at what could be his farewell from the post, though he maintains publically that he was never a contender anyway and would abide by the decision of the party as any other worker. Instead, he says, he is focussed on ensuring that the party wins all 29 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections next year. His first stop following the party’s victory in the state was Chhindwara, the pocketborough of state Congress chief Kamal Nath, a and a constituency where the BJP failed to make a mark.

सभी को राम-राम… pic.twitter.com/QpaOxpZyMk

— Office of Shivraj (@OfficeofSSC) December 9, 2023

If indications so far are to be believed, the party has made up its mind to put in place a new guard with the Lok Sabha elections in mind, with several heavyweight OBC leaders in contention. Among the prominent leaders in the reckoning include Union minister and OBC leader Pralhad Singh Patel, Narendra Singh Tomar and Kailash Vijayvargia. Credited for the party regaining its hold in the Gwalior-Chambal region, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia’s name has also been thrown into the mix.Notably, the BJP has banked on OBC leaders as its chief ministers ever since its win in the 2003 Assembly elections in the state. All its past chief ministers in the state so far — Uma Bharti, Babu Lal Gaur and Chouhan — have been OBCs, a community that constitutes 50 per cent of the state’s population.