Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who completed 10 years in office on Sunday, thanked his wife Sadhana and others for helping him to achieve this rare feat.
Mr. Chouhan broke the record held by senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who ruled the State for two consecutive terms from 1993-2003.
“On this occasion I want to thank my party, senior leaders for their guidance and my wife (Sadhana), from bottom of my heart for their contribution without which I couldn’t have succeeded. We (my wife and me) both are so integral that my opponents attacking me sometimes end up targeting my wife too,” he said at a function organised here.
“The BJP was the best political party in the world. I give all the credit of the feat to my party. It (BJP) has got Midas’ touch. In place of me, if the party would have picked up someone else, he too could have also completed 10 years in the office,” he said.
Recalling BJP patriarchs Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L. K. Advani, he said that he has got immense love of the party. “Due to senior leader’s guidance and cultural values, I could reach this point,” he added.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi rang me up and congratulated me today. This has inspired me to work more in future. Party chief Amit Shah too has blessed me over phone,” Mr. Chouhan said.
Union Minister Narendra Tomar said Chouhan had launched several schemes for public welfare and some of them have been replicated in other States. While describing Mr. Chouhan as “upright” and one “pursuing wise policy with a good intent”, Mr. Tomar said M.P. was buzzing with development activities under his leadership.
BJP organisational general secretary Ram Lal said the party puts the country first. “We think about ourselves at last. This approach has resulted in discipline in the party, which is marching ahead,” he added. Among others, the function was attended by senior leaders including BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha.
Meets Geeta, other special children
Meanwhile, Mr. Chouhan spent some time with Geeta, the deaf-mute girl who returned to India from Pakistan last month, in Indore .
She has been residing at a city-based institute after returning to the country.
After meeting Geeta and other special children with disabilities, the Chief Minister announced a slew of measures to uplift the hearing and speech-impaired persons.
Mr. Chouhan and his wife Sadhana interacted with Geeta and other special children with the help of sign language experts for over 30 minutes.
“Geeta has returned home after great difficulties. Now search for her parents is on. She should treat my wife and me as maternal aunt and uncle,” the CM said.
“The (Madhya Pradesh) State government will take care of Geeta and special children like her,” he assured.
“The first decision of mine on entering the 11th year in office is in favour of speech and hearing-impaired students. Such students who score at least 50 per cent marks in Class XII and want to do Diploma in Education (D.Ed) and Bachelor in Education (B.Ed) will be given free of cost education to these courses,” he said.
“I want these special students to become teachers,” he said, adding 1,000 such posts will be filled so that such students get proper education.
The State government will foot the bill of the expenditure to be borne by speech and hearing-impaired students who want to do IIT, IIM and medical courses after cracking entrance tests, he added.
Geeta was reportedly only 7 or 8 years old when she was found sitting alone on the Samjhauta Express at Lahore Station by the Pakistani Rangers 15 years ago. She was adopted by Edhi Foundation and returned to India on October 26. - PTI
