Madhya Pradesh Gets Two Deputy CMs; How Parties Use This Political Post To Balance Social Equations

BJP leaders Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla on Wednesday took oath as the two deputies of the newly appointed Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Mohan Yadav. The BJP has appointed two deputy chief ministers in all of the three states -- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan -- where the party emerged victorious in the recently held Assembly elections.

Though the post of Deputy CM does not find any specific mention in the Constitution, it has come to become a political post used by parties to maintain social equations in majority governments and to keep allies content in coalition ones. The newly elected government of Madhya Pradesh is the first BJP government of the state to have two Deputy CMs simultaneously.

Origin Of Appointing Deputies

While Mohan Yadav is a part of MP's other backward classes (OBC), which dominate the state's population, Jagdish Devda belongs to the Scheduled Castes (SC) category and Rajendra Shukla is a strong Brahmin face from the state's Vindhya region. The genesis of the trend to appoint one or more deputies to the head of the executive at the state or the central level in independent India can be traced back to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's appointment as the deputy prime minister in the first union cabinet in 1947 under former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

First Deputy CM In India

However, the first deputy CM in the country was appointed much before it gained Independence. Congress' Anugrah Narayan Sinha, a prominent upper-caste Rajput from Aurangabad, was first made the deputy CM of the undivided state of Bihar in 1937. He later served two consecutive terms at the post from 1946 until his death in 1957. 

States With Deputy CMs

In recent times, the BJP's appointment of two deputy CMs in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 is widely considered to have resurrected the tradition among parties to assign multiple deputies to chief ministers in order to maintain caste equilibrium in state governments. Currently, 14 states have deputy CMs or are set to get one or more of the political appointees, including Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The states that already have one or more deputy CMs include UP, where BJP's Brajesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya enjoy the privileges of the political post, Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar, Karnataka, and Himachal Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh currently has five deputy CMs in the cabinet of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. 

Constitution On Deputy CM Post

Article 163(1) of the Constitution, which deals with the formation of a chief minister's council of ministers, says, "There shall be a council of Ministers with the chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions, except in so far as he is by or under this constitution required to exercise his functions or any of them in his discretion."

Meanwhile, Article 164(1) states, "The chief Minister shall be appointed by the Governor and the other Ministers shall be appointed by the Governor on the advice of the Chief Minister, and the Ministers shall hold office during the pleasure of the Governor: Provided that in the State of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, there shall be a Minister in charge of tribal welfare who may in addition be in charge of the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and backward classes or any other work."

As the post of Deputy CM finds no explicit mention in the aforementioned provisions, which deal with the composition of the council of ministers and the appointment of ministers in states, the rank of Deputy CM is considered equivalent to that of other cabinet ministers. They also receive the same pay and perks as other cabinet ministers.

Judiciary On Deputy Heads Of Executive

The 1989 appointment Congress leader Devi Lal as deputy PM was challenged in the Supreme Court on the that "the oath administered to him as such was not…in accordance with the prescription of the Constitution". Upholding the appointment, the apex court ruled that "...in view of the clear statement made by the learned Attorney General that Respondent No. 1 (Lal) is just a Minister like other members of the Council of Ministers, though he has been described as Deputy Prime Minister… The description of him as Deputy Prime Minister does not confer on him any powers of the Prime Minister".