MLA Hemant Khandelwal elected Madhya Pradesh BJP president

Legislator Hemant Kumar Khandelwal was on Wednesday declared elected as the new president of the Madhya Pradesh BJP unit in the presence of senior party leaders.

Khandelwal was the sole candidate to file his nomination papers on Tuesday for the post of the Bharatiya Janata Party's Madhya Pradesh unit chief.

Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Wednesday declared Khandelwal, the MLA from Betul, as the new state BJP head.

Khajuraho MP and outgoing state BJP chief Vishnu Dutt Sharma, Union ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Virendra Kumar, among others, were present on the occasion.

Sharma held the top organisational post in the state since 2020.

Earlier on Tuesday, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, who was Khandelwal's proposer, submitted the nomination papers at the state BJP office.

Hemant Khandelwal's father Vijay Kumar Khandelwal was a four-term Lok Sabha member from Betul. After his father's death in 2007, Hemant Khandelwal contested from Betul in a by-election and entered the Lok Sabha for the first time.

He also served as the Betul district president of the BJP from 2010 to 2013 and was MLA from Betul from 2013 to 2018.

Hemant Khandelwal was again elected from the seat in the 2023 assembly polls.

He had also served as treasurer of the state BJP, and is currently president of the Kushabhau Thakre Trust, a body linked to the saffron outfit.