Ajit Pramod Kumar Jogi (29 April 1946 – 29 May 2020) was an Indian civil servant and politician who was the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, from November 2000 to December 2003. A village boy who became an engineering gold medallist and an officer of both the police and the administrative services, he was one of the cleverest and most controversial politicians of central India. He spent his last sixteen years in a wheelchair.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Ajit Pramod Kumar Jogi |
| Born | 29 April 1946, Jogisar, Bilaspur district, Chhattisgarh |
| Died | 29 May 2020, Raipur (aged 74) |
| State | Chhattisgarh |
| Education | Maulana Azad College of Technology, Bhopal (B.E., gold medal); law degree |
| Earlier career | Indian Police Service; Indian Administrative Service (1970 batch) |
| Parties | Indian National Congress; Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (founder, 2016) |
| Offices | Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh (2000–2003); Member of the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha |
| Spouse | Dr Renu Jogi |
| Children | Amit Jogi |
Early Life
He was born in the village of Jogisar, near Pendra, in a poor family. His parents were teachers who had become Christians. He walked barefoot to school, he often recalled. He stood first in mechanical engineering at the regional college in Bhopal in 1968 and taught for a time at the engineering college in Raipur.
Civil Servant
He was selected for the Indian Police Service and, at the next attempt, for the Indian Administrative Service, which he joined in 1970. He served as collector of four districts of Madhya Pradesh, Sidhi, Shahdol, Raipur and Indore, for about twelve years in all, said to be a record.
Career
Into politics
In 1986, on a telephone call from the office of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, he resigned from the service and was sent to the Rajya Sabha. He became a spokesman of the Congress, known for his sharp tongue, and won the Lok Sabha seat of Raigarh in 1998.
Chief Minister
When Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh on 1 November 2000, the Congress had a majority among its legislators, and the party chose Jogi over more senior claimants. He set up the new state’s administration, wooed its tribal and Satnami voters, and broke up the opposition by engineering defections.
He lost the election of December 2003. Days later a recording surfaced that appeared to show him offering money to opposition legislators to prevent the new government from being formed, and the party suspended him.
Paralysis
In April 2004, while campaigning for the Lok Sabha, he was in a road accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. He won the election, from Mahasamund, and went on in politics from a wheelchair.
Controversies
- **Caste:** his claim to belong to a Scheduled Tribe was challenged for decades, and an official committee cancelled his tribal certificate in 2019
- **His son:** Amit Jogi was tried for the murder of a political opponent in 2003 and acquitted
- **The Antagarh by-election:** in 2014 a recording suggested that a Congress candidate had been induced to withdraw; father and son were blamed
His own party
Pushed to the margins of the Congress, he left it in 2016 and founded the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh. In 2018, allied with the Bahujan Samaj Party, it won a handful of seats, taking votes from both the main parties.
Death
In May 2020 he suffered a cardiac arrest at his home in Raipur, reportedly after a seed lodged in his windpipe. He died on 29 May after three weeks in a coma.
Personal Life
He married Dr Renu Jogi, an eye surgeon, who has been a member of the state assembly several times. Their daughter died young; their son, Amit, leads the party his father founded. He wrote books in Hindi and English, among them a study of the role of the district collector.
His successors as Chief Minister were Raman Singh, Bhupesh Baghel and Vishnu Deo Sai.
Featured image: Ajit Jogi in September 2018. Photo by News Tak Youtube, licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
