One sapling at a time — Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan kept his daily tree-planting pledge alive on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, by planting a sapling in New Delhi and calling on citizens across the country to join what he is branding a grassroots green movement.

Sharing the moment on X, Chouhan wrote — 'प्रतिदिन पौधरोपण के संकल्प के क्रम में आज नई दिल्ली में पौधा रोपा' ('In continuation of my resolve to plant a tree every day, I planted a sapling in New Delhi today') — and urged followers: 'You too plant trees and make your important contribution to environmental conservation.'

The minister has made public participation central to the drive. Citizens can join by visiting a dedicated webpage or by giving a missed call to 8929629475 to register as a 'Vriksha Mitra' (Friend of Trees) — a volunteer identity designed to build a sense of personal ownership over the afforestation push. The campaign hashtag #OnePlantADay anchors the social-media push.

Chouhan's plantation pledge as a daily political ritual

For a senior politician who spent four terms as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, the daily sapling photograph is as much about public messaging as it is about ecology. Indian political leaders have long used visible, low-barrier environmental acts — a tree planted, a river cleaned — to signal commitment to issues that cut across partisan lines. What distinguishes Chouhan's version is the attempt to convert a personal gesture into an opt-in community programme, complete with a registration mechanism and a branded volunteer title.

The tradition has deep roots. Van Mahotsav, the national tree-planting festival, was launched in 1950 and remains the oldest organised afforestation campaign in independent India, embedding the idea that tree cover is a civic responsibility rather than purely a government function. Chouhan's daily pledge draws on that same ethos, updated for the social-media era.

Why 'one plant a day' matters for India's green-cover push

India's ambition to expand forest and tree cover is a stated climate commitment. Aggregate individual actions, if sustained and documented, can feed into district- and state-level tallies that governments cite in progress reports. A minister modelling the behaviour daily — publicly, with photographs — is a textbook nudge strategy: make the desired action visible, easy to imitate, and socially rewarding.

Whether the Vriksha Mitra network translates into verifiable plantation numbers will be the real test of the campaign's ambition beyond its feed-scroll appeal.