RSS-man ML Khattar to be Haryana's new Chief Minister

It has been learnt that the decision to appoint 60-year-old Khattar, who is considered very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP National President Amit Shah, was taken in a meeting of elected MLAs, attended by Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and BJP vice president Dinesh Sharma, who were appointed as observers by the BJP's Parliamentary Board to decide on who would become Haryana's new chief minister.

Khattar will be Haryana's first non-Jat chief minister in about two decades.

Khattar, a Punjabi by origin, had worked as an RSS pracharak for 40 years. Though he has no administrative experience, but he is stated to have been favoured by the leadership for his clean image. "With the support of everyone, we will give Haryana a good, corruption free government,” ML Khattar is quoted by media as saying while depicting his first reactions after being selected to lead the new BJP legislators.

"The BJP has got a clear majority in the 90-member Assembly for the first time," he added.  The saffron party won 47 seats in the recently concluded Assembly elections out of 90-seats. Hence it got the absolute majority to form government.

According to reports, Khattar is an unmarried former RSS pracharak or functionary, who was deputed to the BJP 20 years ago. He has worked closely with Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the latter had charge of the state in the 90s.

The PM began his Haryana campaign from Karnal, ML Khattar's constituency. Khattar won the seat by a margin of 63,736 votes. Earlier this year, ML Khattar was the chairman of the party's campaign committee for Haryana in the national elections. The party won seven of the state's 10 seats.

Khattar’s selection as CM came as a surprise to many as he had edged out other contenders to the likes of Ram Niwas Sharma, Anil Vij, Captain Abhimanyu and Rao Inderjeet Singh. Party insiders thinks that “closeness” to Modi and Amit Shah gave him the much needed advantage.  BJP at the same time tried to woo RSS by giving their man a chance to rule.

Apart from that, BJP nevertheless was trying to break the state from the shackles of Jat community, said political observers. Since, Captain Abhimanyu, who until Sunday was among the front-runners for CM's post, was not chosen as per party’s policy, as he represents Jat community, they said.

BJP also seemed to have based it on the fact that it did not do well in Jat-dominated areas like Sirsa, Hisar, Bhiwandi and Jinda in south Haryana and performed very well elsewhere in the state in assembly elections held last week. Furthermore, one more probability was that Khattar was rewarded for his commendable work during the Lok Sabha elections.