Vishnu Deo Sai (born 21 February 1964) is an Indian politician of the Bharatiya Janata Party who has been Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh since 13 December 2023. A farmer from the tribal district of Jashpur who began as a village council member, he was a member of the Lok Sabha four times and a Union Minister of State. He is the first undisputed tribal Chief Minister of a state in which nearly a third of the people belong to the Scheduled Tribes.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Vishnu Deo Sai |
| Born | 21 February 1964, Bagia, Jashpur district, Chhattisgarh |
| Age | 62 |
| State | Chhattisgarh |
| Community | Kanwar tribe |
| Party | Bharatiya Janata Party |
| Offices | Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh (since December 2023); Union Minister of State for Steel and Mines (2014–2019); Member of the Lok Sabha for Raigarh (1999–2019) |
| Constituency | Kunkuri |
| Spouse | Kaushalya Sai |
| Children | 3 |
Early Life
He was born in the village of Bagia in Jashpur, in the forested north-east of the state, into a farming family of the Kanwar tribe with a tradition of public life; members of the family had been legislators. He studied at a school in Kunkuri and took up farming.
Career
From the panchayat
He was elected a member, and then the head, of his village council in 1989–90. In 1990 he won the assembly seat of Tapkara in undivided Madhya Pradesh and held it for two terms.
Parliament
He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Raigarh, a seat reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, in 1999, and won it four times in a row. In 2014 he became Minister of State in the government of Narendra Modi, with charge of steel, mines, and labour and employment at different times.
In 2019 his party denied tickets to all its sitting members from Chhattisgarh, and he did not contest.
Party organiser
He was president of the BJP in Chhattisgarh three times. He is known as a quiet, unassuming man without enemies, close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which has worked among the tribes of Jashpur for decades.
Chief Minister
In the assembly election of 2023 he won from Kunkuri, and the BJP unexpectedly defeated the Congress government of Bhupesh Baghel. The party passed over its three-time Chief Minister, Raman Singh, who became Speaker, and chose Sai. He was sworn in on 13 December 2023, with two deputies.
- **Mahtari Vandan Yojana:** a monthly payment of a thousand rupees to married women
- **Paddy:** purchase of rice from farmers at 3,100 rupees a quintal, a campaign promise
- **Housing:** sanction of houses for poor rural families under the central scheme
- **Conversion:** a stricter law against religious conversion by force or inducement
The campaign against the Maoists
The southern districts of Chhattisgarh, the Bastar region, have been the last stronghold of India’s Maoist insurgency. Since he took office, security forces have carried out their largest operations in decades. Several hundred insurgents were killed in 2024 and 2025, among them the movement’s general secretary in May 2025, and many more surrendered. The Union government set a target of ending the insurgency by March 2026. Rights groups have questioned some of the killings and raised concerns for the tribal villagers caught between the two sides.
Personal Life
He is married to Kaushalya Sai; they have a son and two daughters. He still describes himself as a farmer. He speaks softly and seldom attacks opponents by name, a contrast with most of his peers.
Chhattisgarh’s cultural names include the Pandavani singer Teejan Bai and the playwright Habib Tanvir.
Featured image: Vishnu Deo Sai, Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, in June 2025. Photo by the Prime Minister’s Office, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.
