Chandigarh: Hours after the senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar and his entire cabinet stepped down, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday appointed its state unit chief Nayab Saini as legislature group leader.
The new chief minister will take oath at 5 pm.
After being chosen for the post, Nayab thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party president JP Nadda. “On being unanimously elected leader of the BJP Legislative Party, Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi, Home Minister Shri @AmitShah, National President Mr. @JPNadda @BJP4Haryana State in-charge Mr. @BjpBiplab former Chief Minister @mlkhattar, thanks to all the MLAs and independent MLAs,” he posted on X.
Later he met Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatraya and staked claim to form the government in the state.
An influential figure within the OBC, Nayab Saini is the BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from Kurukshetra and is considered close to outgoing Chief Minister Khattar. It is believed that CM himself had advocated his name for a ticket from Kurukshetra in 2019.
Saini was appointed the party’s state boss in October last year.
He had earlier served as district general secretary of BJP’s youth wing in Ambala in 2002 and was named the district president in 2005. He was also the president of the BJP’s farmer wing in Haryana. In 2012, he was chosen to lead the party in Ambala as district president. He won the Narayangarh Vidhan Sabha seat in 2014 and was a a minister in the Haryana government in 2019 and then went on to represent the Kurukshetra Parliamentary seat.
Khattar and his Cabinet colleagues had resigned earlier in the day following a breakdown of ties between the ruling BJP and Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) over seat-sharing agreement for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in the state.
The saffron party, which has 41 MLAs in the 90-member Assembly, is likely to form a new government with six Independent legislators and one from the Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP), accommodating a few in the Cabinet. At least four JJP MLAs are also likely to walk out of the party, The Indian Express reported quoting sources.
On the other hand, Khattar is likely to contest from the Karnal Lok Sabha seat, currently held by Sanjay Bhatia.
