Former RSS pracharak Manhar Lal Khattar has emerged as a favourite name among the BJP cadres. His name was decided upon when BJP analysed the votes where majority had come from the non-Jat faction.
The clear majority in Haryana for Bhartiya Janata Party came as a gush of fresh air for the state which was under the rule of Congress for the past decade. But a greater task is upon the party – to find a suitable chief minister for the state.
Former RSS pracharak Manhar Lal Khattar has emerged as a favourite name among the BJP cadres.
His name was decided upon when BJP analysed the votes where majority had come from the non-Jat faction.
But there are others as well who may still have a chance to compete. These are former spokesman Captain Abhimanyu and Kisan Morcha chief Om Prakash Dhankar, both Jats. Another name that has been popping is that of party state president Ram Bilas Sharma and union ministers of state Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gujjar.
Now, it is being said that standing with Khattar next in the line are Captain Abhimanyu, Gujjar and Sharma.
According to the Indian Express, the Haryana BJP legislature party is scheduled to meet at Chandigarh to elect its leader Tuesday. Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and party vice-president Dinesh Sharma have been assigned the task of overseeing the election of the leader.
Let’s take a look at these names:
Manohar Lal Khattar, 60 : He has a great political acumen and is a master of strategies. He was appointed the chairman of BJP’s Haryana election committee for the recent Lok Sabha elections. After spending almost four decades as RSS pracharak, Khattar joined BJP about two decades ago. He has been a part of election committees of 12 states including Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and Rajasthan and hence, apart of the BJP success story in these states.
Captain Abhimanyu, 46 : He is the youngest of them all. He is a Harvard graduate who joined and then quit army in 1994 after serving for six years. He started his own business and then joined politics. He is one of the prominent Jat leaders in the state. He came into limelight during the 2014 BJP campaign when he was elevated to the rank of national secretary and general secretary of the Haryana BJP. Reportedly, Abhimanyu lost against Bhupinder Singh Hooda from Rohtak when he first contestd electon in 2004. Same was against Hooda’s son Deepender Hooda in 2005, again from Rohtak. He then contested from Narnaund assembly segment in 2009, but lost to INLD’s candidate. This time, he contested from Narnaund and won by a margin of over 6,000 votes.
Krishan Pal Gujjar, 57 : He comes from a very humble background of peasants. He developed interest in politics while he was studying in Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was once general secretary of the college student union. After graduation, he pursued a degree in law from Meerut university. His formal entry to politics was through Faridabad Municipal elections which he won in 1994 and became a councillor. The journey that started saw him as Haryana transport minister in the Bansi Lal government in 1996. In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Gujjar contested from Faridabad constituency and won with the highest-ever margin of over 4.6 lakh votes.
Ram bilas Sharma, 63 : The oldest contendr, he is five-time MLA and three-time minister from Haryana. Like Khattar, he too has an RSS background which he joined while in college.He joined the Delhi office of RSS as a proof-reader for the newspaper Motherland. He joined Geeta Vidyalaya in Kurukshetra as a lecturer but left it later on the request of his mentor late Dr Mangal Sain and joined politics actively. Under his leadership as Haryana BJP president, the party won seven out of eight seats it contested in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
