New MP BJP chief Vishnu Dutt Sharma takes charge

Newly appointed Madhya Pradesh BJP chief Vishnu Dutt Sharma took charge at the party's office in Bhopal on Monday evening. Before taking charge at Deendayal Parisar, Sharma reached the Board Office Square and garlanded a statue of Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar. In his address, Sharma warned the Kamal Nath government to stop "harassing" BJP workers and stressed his party would not back down from protests due to such measures.

He said programmes and agitations launched under outgoing state unit chief Rakesh Singh would continue. Former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in his address, hit out at the Congress government on various issues including atrocities on Dalits in the state. Sharma (49), popularly known as VD, is Lok Sabha MP from Khajuraho and is a staunch follower of the RSS. He is credited with strengthening the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students' wing of RSS, in Madhya Pradesh in the 1990s.