BJP leader Nayab Singh Saini was sworn in as Haryana’s new Chief Minister on March, hours after Manohar Lal Khattar and his Cabinet ministers resigned from their posts.
Mr. Saini said that he urged Governor Bandaru Dattatreya to convene the Assembly on March 13 to prove majority, adding that he gave letters of support of 48 MLAs to the Governor.
Mr. Saini was administered the oath of office by Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya during a ceremony held at the Raj Bhavan. Along with Mr. Saini, BJP leaders Kanwar Pal, Mool Chand Sharma, Jai Parkash Dalal and Banwari Lal and independent MLA Ranjit Singh Chautala also took oath as Ministers.
Mr. Saini, who is an MP from Kurukshetra, was unanimously elected as the leader of the State BJP Legislature Party and will be sworn in later in the day, party MLAs Subhash Sudha and J.P. Dalal told reporters.
Considered as a confidante of Manohar Lal Khattar (69), Mr. Saini will be replacing the BJP strongman whose second term as CM was going to end in October.
The BJP had in October appointed Mr. Saini, belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC), as its Haryana unit president in place of Om Prakash Dhankar.
Earlier today, Mr. Khattar, along with his Cabinet, submitted their resignation to Governor Bandaru Dattatreyar, amid speculation that the BJP-JJP alliance had broken down following differences over seat sharing for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
Jat support divided
The support of Jats, who are the most populous communities in the State, is largely seen to be divided between the Congress, the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).
Along with these factors, the move to pick Mr. Saini as the chief minister is also being seen as a counter to the anti-incumbency perception against the Khattar dispensation.
The population of the Saini community is around 8% in Haryana. The community wields influence in many of Haryana’s northern districts, including Ambala, Kurukshetra and Hisar besides in few other districts.
Mr. Saini was also a minister in the Khattar Cabinet between 2014 and 2019. He was a legislator when he fought the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
During the past three decades, Mr. Saini rose through the ranks in state BJP and also held the position of district president and general secretary of state BJP Kisan Morcha. He was district general secretary of state BJP’s youth wing in 2002 for Ambala and became the district president three years later.
He became MLA from Naraingarh Assembly segment in 2014, when the BJP came to power in Haryana for the first time on its own strength.
In the 2019 LS polls, Mr. Saini had defeated his nearest rival, Congress’ Nirmal Singh from the Kurukshetra seat, by a margin of 3,84,591 votes.
Mr. Saini, who was a minister in the Khattar Cabinet, was fielded in 2019 from Kurukshetra seat after sitting MP R.K. Saini rebelled.
(With PTI inputs)
