THE RISE OF A WARHORSE

A SEASONED TRIBAL LEADER, VISHNU DEO SAI PIPS OTHER CONTENDERS TO BECOME CHHATTISGARH CM AS THE BJP TRIES TO BALANCE CASTE EQUATIONS

RAHUL NORONHA

When the erst-while united Madhya Pradesh went to the polls in 1990, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had fielded 30-odd youngsters, many of whom had earned their wings in its youth organisation—the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). The calculated gamble worked. The BJP won 220 of the 320 assembly seats, dislodging the ruling Congress, which had been in power for 10 years. Among the young debutants who emerged victorious were Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Raman Singh, who went on to dominate the political landscape in MP and Chhattisgarh in the coming decades. On December 13, one of the youngest from that ‘batch of 1990’ reached the zenith of his nearly 35-year-long political career. Vishnu Deo Sai, 59, a four-time Raigarh MP who also rose to be a Union…

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India Today (Digital) - 1 Issue, Monday, December 25, 2023

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