Manohar Lal Khattar, who resigned as the Chief Minister of Haryana, is expected to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from the Karnal Lok Sabha seat.
With the political drama unfolding in Chandigarh on Tuesday in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Haryana is going to get a new chief minister in Kurukshetra MP Nayab Singh Saini after incumbent CM Manohar Lal Khattar submitted his resignation with cabinet ministers earlier in the day.
Saini, who earlier had been MLA from Ambala’s Naraingarh assembly segment, would be the second chief minister from the other backward classes (OBC) community after Rao Birender Singh, the father of Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh. Coincidentally, Rao Birender remained in the chief minister's office for a brief period of seven months.
Tuesday’s political development also ended BJP’s four-and-half-year-old alliance with Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) led by former Deputy CM Dushyant Chautala. In 2019, the BJP partnered with the JJP to form a government for the second time in Haryana after it failed to get a majority. Of the 90 seats, the BJP had 40 and the JJP had 10. The Congress won 30 seats.
When the JJP allied with the BJP in Haryana, it was strongly opposed by the core vote bank —Jats— because Dushyant Chautala could win the seats on the promise to unseat the BJP from the agrarian state.
In 2019, when the JJP gave support to Khattar’s BJP, it claimed to fulfil the core promises of Rs 5,100 in pension to old-age persons and 75 per cent reservation to youths in the private sector. Both of these promises could not be completely fulfilled.
Satish Tyagi, author of ‘Politics of Chaudhar’, dubbed Tuesday’s development in Chandigarh as an attempt by the BJP to kill many birds with one stone.
“The BJP knows it well that Jats would not vote for them and the JJP has a following among the Jats. In the coalition, it would not get any benefit but if both parties go alone in Lok Sabha polls, then a share of Jat votes could be diverted to damage the prospects of Congress. However, there is a possibility that the JJP could also lose its vote bank to Congress if it makes all Jats side with it,” said Tyagi.
On the timings of political upheaval, Tyagi said that the model code of conduct can be imposed at any moment now and to take advantage of it, the BJP has taken this decision. At the same time, the BJP’s Haryana unit can appease some independent MLAs by inducting them into the cabinet for the remaining period of six months of this term.
Tyagi added that elevating Nayab Saini as CM would help the BJP in consolidating the OBC voters as, in the process, the party also got rid of their alliance partner JJP. The JJP had been asking the BJP to give two seats —Hisar and Bhiwani— while the BJP’s state leadership had announced to contest all 10 seats all by themselves.
Nayab Singh Saini, a close confidante of outgoing CM Manohar Lal Khattar, had been elevated to the post of Haryana BJP President to replace Om Prakash Dhankhar.
Sources said that Khattar, who also had a role in the defeat of Dhankhar in the 2019 assembly elections, wanted his protégé Saini to be at the helm of the party’s top post in the state.
Now, months later, Saini has been promoted to the chief ministerial post even though there has been a rebellion by Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij, who came out of the meeting in between in Chandigarh, according to sources.
Political analysts observed that Khattar would contest from Karnal Lok Sabha seat as sitting BJP MP Sanjay Bhatia is being elevated as the new party state president to replace Nayab Singh Saini, the new chief minister of the state.
Saini joined the BJP in 1996 and became district general secretary of the BJP youth wing in Ambala in 2002. Later, he became district president of Ambala in 2005. He was elected as MLA from Naraingarh constituency in 2014. In 2019, he defeated Congress candidate Nirmal Singh at the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat by 3.84 Lakh votes. He has done his LLB from Meerut University (now known as Chaudhary Charan Singh University).
(Sat Singh is an independent journalist from Rohtak, Haryana)