In a significant political development, Haryana BJP president and OBC leader Nayab Singh Saini has been picked as the next Chief Minister, hours after Manohar Lal Khattar and his Cabinet Ministers submitted their resignations to governor Bandaru Dattatreya.
Saini took the oath as the new Chief Minister of Haryana on March 12 evening. He was appointed as Haryana BJP chief in October last year and is known to be close confidante to outgoing Chief Minister Khattar.
Know all about the New Haryana Chief Minister
Saini, who is an MP from Kurukshetra, was unanimously elected as the leader of the State BJP Legislature Party. His association with the BJP dates back to 1996. His political career started nearly three decades ago, when he worked to strengthen the BJP’s organisation in Haryana. He rose to become the district general secretary of BJP’s youth wing in Ambala in 2002 and was named the district president in 2005.
He has worked with multiple arms of the party, including the farmers’ wing Kisan Morcha, of which he was the state general secretary. In 2012, he was chosen to lead the party in Ambala as district president.
Following several postings at the organisation level, he was elected as an MLA from Narayangarh in the 2014 state polls. In 2016, he was named a state minister. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Saini was fielded from the Kurukshetra constituency. He defeated the Congress’s Nirmal Singh by a margin of nearly 4 lakh votes.
The development occurs amid strain in relations between the BJP and the deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), primarily related to the failure to reach a seat-sharing agreement for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in the state.
Predictable Opposition angle
The opposition did not leave any stone unturned to mock the ruling party. Congress MP Deepender Hooda said, “All that is happening in Haryana is because the public has decided to bring change. The public was upset with the present government in the state. We are keeping a close eye on the developments.”
Congress leader and former CM Bhupinder Hooda said, “We always knew the BJP- JJP alliance was made just to mislead people and now it’s become clear that they were always based on nothing. People have seen through them and will vote for us.”
The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) Haryana chief Nishan Singh said that the party is likely to announce its next course of action on Wednesday, “All issues were discussed in today’s meeting. It has been decided that ‘Nav Sankalp’ rally will be organised in Hisar tomorrow and whatever things have been decided by the party will be informed there,” he added.
Besides the Lok Sabha elections, which may be held in a month or two, the term of the Haryana legislative assembly is also set to conclude on November 3. And assembly elections in the state might be held in October. In 2019, the BJP did not reach majority mark. Hence, it was running a coalition government with Dushyant Chautala’s JJP.
Nevertheless, Saini’s appointment is said to have magnified the BJP’s influence within the OBC community in the state. The move came at a crucial time, considering the division of support among the Jats, the most populous community in the state, among the Congress, Jannayak Janta Party, and the Indian National Lok Dal.
