Manohar Lal Khattar has been the chief minister of Haryana for two consecutive terms since 2019.  Khattar and his cabinet ministers resigned on March 12, 2024, and he was replaced within hours by BJP state president and Kurukshetra MP Nayab Singh Saini as the CM. As the BJP effected a change of guard in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, it ended its four-and-half-year alliance with the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) led by Dushyant Chautala. Khattar then successfully contested the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Karnal constituency of Haryana. An RSS man, Manohar Lal Khattar, toiled on the ground to build the organisation for the last four decades till Prime Minister Narendra Modi handpicked him to lead the first BJP government in Haryana in 2014. The 70-year-old bachelor, known for his simple lifestyle and clean image, has earned himself the reputation of a tough taskmaster with a no-nonsense approach while working behind the scenes in key positions in BJP and is admired for his organisational skills. However, it is his proximity with Modi, who himself was a pracharak for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that catapulted him to the Chief Minister’s post. The man, whose parents worked as labourers and who once wanted to be a medico, has become the first Punjabi chief Minister of Haryana and the first non-Jat leader to occupy the post after 18 years. Known for his political acumen, Khattar played the role of a master strategist and successfully led many electoral campaigns for his party, the latest being the 2014 Parliamentary elections in Haryana as chairman of the Election Campaign committee. It was in 1996 when Khattar was actively working in Haryana, that he first began working with Modi, who was then in charge of the state. In 2002, Khattar was given a lot of Jammu and Kashmir as the state’s election in charge. Coming from a humble agricultural background, his family arrived in Haryana from Pakistan post-partition. They settled at Nindana, a village situated in Haryana’s Rohtak district. To survive, his father and grandfather took up odd jobs as labourers, finally saving enough to start a small shop. Khattar was born in Nindana in 1954.