Mohan Charan Majhi was a surprise choice by the BJP as its first Chief Minister in Odisha, who sworn in as the chief minister of the state on Wednesday in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There were several names being discussed as probable CMs but Majhi did not feature in many of those discussions.
A four-time BJP MLA, Majhi, has helped the party strategise the Odisha campaign. He ticks all the boxes, but there could be something else that might have tipped the scales in his favour.
It has been learnt that Majhi has a stronghold among the tribals. And given his clean image, he appears to be an eligible candidate for the CM's post.
Who is Mohan Charan Majhi?
A member of the Santali tribe, Majhi hails from Raikala village in Odisha’s mineral-rich Keonjhar district.
He started as the sarpanch of the Raikala panchayat and gradually ascended the political ladder. Besides politics, he also worked at Saraswati Sishu Mandir, a school affiliated with the RSS.
As per his election affidavit, Majhi passed higher secondary from Jhumpura High School in 1987 and completed his Class 12th from Anadapur College in 1990. He has a BA degree from Chandra Sekhar College and an LLB degree from the Dhenkanal Law College.
In a political career spanning over two decades, Majhi was first elected to the Odisha Legislative Assembly in 2000 and again in 2004. However, he faced a defeat during the 2009 and 2014 elections — which took place after the BJP-BJD alliance broke down.
During his career, Majhi has served as the Chief Whip of the BJP in the 16th Odisha Legislative Assembly, besides being the national secretary of the BJP ST Morcha.
In the 2024 Assembly elections, Majhi defeated BJD’s Mina Majhi by 11,577 votes from the Keonjhar seat.
The Tribal connection
There seems to be a Jharkhand connection as to why Mohan Majhi has beaten every other candidate, be it Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo, Pravati Parida, Suresh Pujari, Manmohan Samal, Mukesh Mahaling or Surama Padhi.
The next electoral test for the BJP is state polls in Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
In Jharkhand, the National Democratic Alliance won nine of 14 Lok Sabha seats. It was a setback for the NDA, which had, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, won 12 of the 14 seats.
That the ground reality has changed fast in Jharkhand is no secret. The arrest of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and former Chief Minister Hemant Soren by the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged land scam might have boomeranged on the NDA.
The BJP-led NDA was routed on tribal seats in Jharkhand.
The JMM-Congress alliance wrested back the ST-reserved seats of Dumka, Khunti and Lohardaga from the NDA.
The BJP also lost the ST-reserved seat of Singbhum in Jharkhand which borders Odisha. By putting Majhi at the helm in Odisha, the BJP might be trying to attract tribal voters in Jharkhand, which will hold its Assembly election in October-November.
Keonjhar, from where Mohan Majhi won the Assembly election, is an ST-reserved seat with 45 per cent of tribal population. The Kendujhar district headquarters is just 50 km from the Jharkhand border.
Jharkhand is a tribal state with STs forming 26.2 per cent of the total population of the state, according to the 2011 Census.
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