Nayab Singh Saini

He won from Ladwa seat in Kurukshetra and defeated Mewa Singh of Congress.

Saini replaced veteran BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar as CM in March 2024. Khattar is learnt to have proposed Saini’s name as CM during the BJP Legislature Party meeting.

Belonging to Mizapur Majra village in Ambala, Saini did his education from B R Ambedkar Bihar University in Muzaffarpur and Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut, where he attained a law degree.

He contested his first election in 2009 from the Naraingarh Assembly constituency but lost to the Congress’s Ram Kishan Gurjar. In 2014, the year the BJP came to power in Haryana and Khattar became the CM for the first time, Saini won and was inducted as a Cabinet minister.

In 2019, the party fielded Saini from the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat, where he defeated Congress candidate Nirmal Singh by more than 3.8 lakh votes. That year, the BJP won all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana.

In October 2023, the BJP appointed Saini as its Haryana unit president, replacing Om Prakash Dhankar, who was moved as national secretary of the party. Saini’s appointment was then too seen as a bid to consolidate OBC votes, aligning with the BJP’s OBC push across the country.