From the recent transfer of 15 IAS officers to taking a lead role in organising a leadership summit on effective governance attended by senior ministers of the BJP government, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav has slowly begun reshaping the new government, moving past the shadows of former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Over two months after taking charge, Yadav reshuffled 15 IAS officers, of which five were appointed to the CM Secretariat. This development comes a week after the government transferred 18 IAS officers.

In the order issued on February 2, Bharat Yadav, a 2008-batch officer was made secretary to the CM, and Avinash Lavania, a 2009-batch IAS officer and managing director of MP Road Development Corporation was made his additional secretary. Chandrashekhar Walimbe, a 2010-batch officer, was also elevated as another additional secretary to the CM. Aditi Garg, a 2015-batch officer, and Anshul Gupta, a 2016-batch officer, have been made deputy secretaries in the CM Secretariat.

A senior government official said, “This is Mohan Yadav asserting himself and picking his men. He recently appointed Raghvendra Kumar Singh, as his principal secretary and has now begun making his team. Shivraj has ruled the state for 17 years and knows the in and out of the administration. Yadav wanted to break from that and it took time to make the necessary appointments, to ensure there is a new administration in place.”

On Saturday, a two-day leadership summit was organised in Bhopal where, after the thumping win in the recently concluded Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the senior leaders of the BJP-ruled government took lessons on governance, stress management, and social media management.

“The purpose of the summit was learning the nitty-gritty of administration, the budget, strategies for interdepartmental coordination, and best practices for good governance. But the talking point here is that this was pushed on a state level. Yadav is interested in holding the summit to ensure the new team can gel together and get working. This did not happen under Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s tenure. For Yadav, this is a stepping stone, he is relying on experts to help his new cabinet find their footing,” said an official.

The summit was a closed-door event, which was attended by senior BJP leaders and Niti Ayog experts. After the event, Yadav said, “Decisions of the state’s Council of Ministers affect the entire population of the state. Therefore, periodic training of the members of the Council of Ministers is necessary. Training will provide an opportunity to learn the nuances of governance, which will lead to tightening administration, and its direct benefit will reach the people of the state through the decisions of the Council of Ministers.”

Dr Vikrant Singh Tomar, who was one of the speakers at the event, told The Indian Express, “I took a session on stress management and leadership. I talked about stresses that come with the public life. I asked the ministers to find somebody to share their stress, read inspirational books, be in the company of right-minded people to feel relaxed and lastly to listen to their own conscience.”

Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Narendra Singh Tomar, Panchayat and Rural Development and Labor Minister Prahlad Singh Patel, and Urban Housing and Development Minister Shri Kailash Vijayvargiya will take the sessions on Sunday.

The sessions will deal with “Legislative Procedure,” “Opportunities and Challenges”, “Aspirations and Resolutions: A Key Initiative of the Government of India”, and “Technology and Good Governance”.

“There will also be a talk by Vijayvargiya on emulating the Indore model on how his city became the cleanest in India and what can be learned from that experience,” said an official.