The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has declared Vishnu Deo Sai as the next Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. Sai is a tribal leader who won from the Kunkuri constituency in north Chhattisgarh, where the BJP made a clean sweep victory.
Sai began his political career in the year 1989. He was first elected as a sarpanch from Bagiya gram panchayat in Kunkuri, where he hails from. In 1990, he contested assembly elections for the first time from Tapkara seat and won. This was before the formation of Chhattisgarh.
From 1999 to 2014, he hit a hat trick by getting elected to the Lok Sabha from Raigarh thrice in a row. His victorious streak earned him the position of Minister of State (MoS) for Steel and MoS Mines in the first Modi government in 2014.
Simultaneously, he was the Chhattisgarh BJP President from 2006 to 2013. After the BJP government was toppled owing to incumbency in 2018, Sai helmed the party as a strong Opposition to the Bhupesh Baghel government.
As per reports, when the BJP was withdrawing the tickets of several members of Parliament in 2014, Sai was amongst the rare leaders who was the first to voluntarily withdraw his name and agreed to not contest the general elections.
This is said to have impressed the party leadership significantly. Moreover, he was not given a ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Sai is also considered a close to be close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He is reportedly considered close to former Chief Minister Raman Singh, whose name was also being projected in the CM race.
Sai hails from the influential Sahu (Teli) community which has a sizable presence in the Durg, Raipur and Bilaspur divisions. The OBCs account for around 45 per cent of the state’s population.
Vishnu Deo Sai was born in Jashpur and worked in farming before joining politics. He belongs to the Kanwar tribe. The 59-year-old incoming CM of Chhattisgarh is the son of Ram Prasad Sai and Jashmani Devi.
He is married to Kaushalya Devi and has a son and two daughters. One of the commendable qualities that Sai is known for is his leadership qualities owing to which the veteran politician has never left his village and still resides there after a career spanning decades.
Under Vishnu Deo Sai’s chief ministership, the BJP is likely to further strengthen its tribal and backward class votebase in the state and region at large.
The BJP gave the mainstream media and pollsters a run for their money by winning with a clear majority of 54 of the 90 seats leaving Congress with 35 seats on 3rd December.
