Nayab Singh Saini will be the new chief minister of Haryana.
New Delhi:
Nayab Singh Saini will be the new chief minister of Haryana, the party said on Tuesday afternoon, hours after former senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Har Manohar Lal Khattar and the entire cabinet resigned.
Nayab Saini, an influential figure in the OBC (Other Backward Classes) community, is the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Kurukshetra and in October last year Appointed national leader of the party.
He was sworn in at 5 pm and was selected after a meeting of the BJP legislative party, which was attended by Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda and State General Secretary Tarun Chugh.
Read | Who is Nayab Saini: 5 facts about the new Haryana chief minister
According to reports, BJP observers have been told that MLAs and the national unit want a new person at the helm to revive the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in April/May and the Assembly elections later this year.
Analysts point out that a leadership change is also something the BJP tends to do ahead of state elections – a high-level swap to prevent the emergence of anti-incumbents. For example, similar measures were taken ahead of elections in Gujarat and Uttarakhand. In both cases, the BJP scored resounding victories.
NDTV Live Report | New Haryana chief minister after Khattar resigns
The party has also changed the chief minister of Karnataka, replacing BS Yediyurappa with Basavaraj Bommai in the 2023 polls. However, this backfired and Congress unexpectedly won.
Mr Saini’s choice also represents the BJP’s focus on caste and OBC equations in the states ahead of the general elections. The BJP has made similar moves after the polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, replacing incumbents or high-profile choices with lesser-known OBC faces.
NDTV Explained | The game plan behind BJP’s 2024 ‘Hattrick Of Heartland Surprise’
The Saini caste from which the new chief minister comes accounts for about 8% of the total population, with a considerable number of people in Kurukshetra, Yamuna Nagar, Ambala, Hisar and Rewari districts .
The political landscape of Haryana was thrown into turmoil over the weekend after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-BJP alliance collapsed over the collapse of Lok Sabha seat-sharing talks. The JJP, now led by former deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, wants two of the 10 seats in the state, but the BJP will give up only one.
Unwilling to give up a second seat (the BJP won all 10 seats in 2019) and hesitant to sack Mr Chautala – a move the party believes could anger farmers and the Jat community, which accounts for about 20% of the population – The saffron party chose to dismantle the government.
Haryana may have only 10 Lok Sabha seats, but it is a Hindi heartland and therefore an important battleground for the BJP. This is especially true as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party has set itself a target of 370 Lok Sabha seats (for itself) and 400 seats for members of the National Democratic Alliance.
There were also speculations – which may now be proven correct – that Mr Khattar could now make his debut in the Lok Sabha elections. He can contest from the now vacant Kurukshetra seat.
Haryana Congress going from strength to strength
The political landscape in Haryana has also been shaken up and the Congress party’s influence is likely to be strengthened in the state, which is also due to hold assembly elections this year.
Last week, Hisar MP Brijendra Singh joined the opposition and Mallikarjun Kharge was also present. “I have resigned as a leading member of the PPP for compelling political reasons,” he said.
In the 2019 assembly elections, the Congress won 31 seats, compared with just 15 seats five years ago. In the general election, the National Party, like the BJP, failed to win any seats, but came second in all 10 seats, behind the BJP, with a 5.5% increase in vote share to 28.5%.
NDTV is now available on WhatsApp channel. click the link Get all the latest updates from NDTV in your chat.
