Nayab Saini is a well-known member of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community and the state president of the BJP. He represents Kurukshetra in the Lok Sabha.
12 March 2024, New Delhi
After Manohar Lal Khattar, a prominent member of the BJP, and his entire cabinet resigned, the party announced on Tuesday afternoon that Nayab Singh Saini would take over as the next chief minister of Haryana.
Nayab Saini is a well-known member of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community and the BJP’s Kurukshetra Lok Sabha MP. He was named the party’s state president in October of last year.
The BJP’s legislative party met, with National General Secretary Tarun Chugh and Agriculture Minister Arjun Munda in attendance, and Mr. Saini was chosen. At 5:00 p.m., he will take the oath of office.
Also being discussed are two Deputy Chief Ministers, one from each of the two communities.
According to reports, the BJP’s observers were informed that MLAs desired a fresh leadership team to revitalise the party prior to the April/May Lok Sabha election and an Assembly election later in the year.
Analysts have noted that in order to prevent anti-incumbency sentiment, the BJP frequently changes leaders prior to state elections. For example, similar steps were taken prior to the elections in Uttarakhand and Gujarat. The BJP won handily in both instances.
In preparation for the 2023 election, the party has replaced BS Yediyurappa as chief minister of Karnataka with Basavaraj Bommai. But that backfired, and the Congress emerged victorious in an unexpected manner.
The choice of Mr. Saini also reflects the BJP’s emphasis on OBC and caste dynamics in every state prior to the general election. Similar manoeuvres were made by the BJP following the polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, substituting obscure OBC faces for incumbents or high-profile candidates.
After unsuccessful negotiations on seat sharing in the Lok Sabha, the ruling BJP-JJP alliance broke up over the weekend, throwing the political landscape of Haryana into disarray. The JJP, led by the now-former deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, wanted two of the state’s ten seats, but the BJP would only give up one.
The saffron party decided to split the government because it was unwilling to give up the second seat (the BJP won all ten in 2019) and was apprehensive about firing Mr. Chautala because it thought that action would infuriate farmers and the Jat community, who make up approximately 20% of the population.
Despite having just ten Lok Sabha seats, Haryana is an important battlefield for the BJP because it is a state in the Hindi heartland. This is especially true given that the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a goal for itself to win 400 Lok Sabha seats with the support of the National Democratic Alliance, in addition to 370 seats on its own.
Additionally, there was conjecture—which could possibly turn out to be accurate—that Mr. Khattar might now run for office in the Lok Sabha. He might run for the now-vacant seat of Kurukshetra.
Congress is expanding in Haryana.
This year’s Assembly election in Haryana coincides with a potential consolidation of the Congress’s influence in the state.
Mallikarjun Kharge was present when Hisar MP Brijendra Singh last week joined the opposition party. “I have resigned from the BJP’s primary membership due to compelling political reasons,” claimed the leader.
The Congress increased its number of seats gained in the 2019 Assembly election from just 15 to 31. Along with the JJP, the national party did not win any seats in the general election but did finish second in all ten seats to the BJP’s 28.5 percent vote share.
