Nayab Singh Saini To Be New Haryana Chief Minister After ML Khattar Resigns

Nayab Singh Saini will be the new Chief Minister of Haryana, the party said Tuesday afternoon, hours after his predecessor, senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar, and the entire cabinet, stepped down.

An influential figure within the OBC, or Other Backward Classes, community, Nayab Saini is the BJP's Lok Sabha MP from Kurukshetra and was appointed the party's state boss in October last year.

Mr Saini - to be sworn in at 5 pm - was selected after a meeting of the BJP's legislative party, which was attended by Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda and National General Secretary Tarun Chugh.

READ | Who Is Nayab Saini: 5 Facts On New Haryana Chief Minister

There is also talk of two Deputy Chief Ministers - from two different communities.

The BJP's observers were reportedly told MLAs wanted a new hand at the helm, to revitalise the party before the April/May Lok Sabha election and an Assembly election later this year.

The change in leadership, analysts have pointed out, is also what the BJP tends to do now ahead of state elections - a swap at the top to ward off anti-incumbency. Similar measures were taken before the Gujarat and Uttarakhand elections, for example. In both cases the BJP scored big wins.

NDTV LIVE COVERAGE | New Haryana Chief Minister After Khattar Quits

The party also changed its Chief Minister in Karnataka - replacing BS Yediyurappa with Basavaraj Bommai for the 2023 poll. That, however, backfired with the Congress recording a surprise win.

Mr Saini's selection also represents the BJP's focus on caste and OBC equations in each state before the general election. The BJP mad similar moves after the Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh polls, replacing incumbents or high-profile choices with little-known OBC faces.

The political landscape in Haryana was thrown into flux over the weekend after the ruling BJP-JJP alliance broke up after failed Lok Sabha seat-sharing talks; the JJP of now ex-Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala wanted two of the state's 10 seats, but the BJP would only surrender one.

Unwilling to give up the second seat (the BJP won all 10 in 2019) and hesitant about sacking Mr Chautala - a move the party felt could anger farmers and the Jat community, which represents around 20 per cent of the population - the saffron party opted to break-up the government.

Haryana has only 10 Lok Sabha seats, but it is a Hindi heartland state and is therefore a crucial battleground for the BJP. This is particularly so since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party set itself a target of 370 Lok Sabha seats (on its own) and 400 with National Democratic Alliance members.

There was also speculation - which now may prove to be true - Mr Khattar could now make his Lok Sabha election debut. He could contest the Kurukshetra seat that will now be vacant.

Congress Growing In Haryana

The shuffle in Haryana's political landscape also comes amid a possible strengthening of the Congress' hand in the state, which is also set to hold an Assembly election this year.

Last week Hisar MP Brijendra Singh joined the opposition party with Mallikarjun Kharge present. "I have resigned from BJP's primary membership due to compelling political reasons," he said.

In the 2019 Assembly election the Congress won 31 seats - up from just 15 five years earlier. In the general election, like the JJP, the national party failed to win any seat, but finished second to the BJP in all 10 and saw a 5.5 per cent increase in its vote share to 28.5 per cent.

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