By IANS
Raipur : A group of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters and steel industrialists have spent over Rs.2.1 million on advertisements since July 2 to celebrate the re-induction of a minister in Chhattisgarh's BJP government that came to power in December 2003.
Amar Agrawal, who was inducted into the BJP government headed by Raman Singh in December 2003 as finance, commercial taxes and urban administration minister of cabinet rank, resigned in January this year after open differences with the chief minister.
Agrawal, 44, belongs to the populous Bilaspur region. He was taken back into the government in a minor cabinet expansion July 2. He has been holding health, medical education, urban administration and commercial taxes portfolios.
"Agrawal spent almost six months seeking appointments with senior leaders and working out a strategy to come back into the cabinet.
"It was a painful period not only for him but all of his close aides including several industrialists. But now that he has made it back to the cabinet, we are celebrating in a big way," a source close to Agrawal told IANS.
Agrawal's loyalists, mainly politicians and some steel and sponge iron industrialists, spent a little over Rs.2.1 million on a weeklong advertisement campaign, sources said.
Advertisements to celebrate Agrawal's re-induction were brought out in many local dailies published from state capital Raipur and his hometown Bilaspur.
Agrawal is the son of Lakhiram Agrawal who has been a senior BJP leader in the state for almost four decades. Party leaders give him the credit of creating a mass saffron base in Chhattisgarh.
BJP sources said that despite strong reservations by the majority of state party leaders, Amar Agrawal was re-inducted into the cabinet only because of Lakhiram's "towering presence in the BJP and his decades old dedication to party".