Haryana BJP leaders scramble for CM job

Manohar Lal Khattar, who seems to be in a comfortable position at Karnal, is another strong contender and has the backing of the RSS.

With various exits polls predicting a majority for the BJP in Haryana, a race has begun, among the party’s top leadership in the state, for the chief minister’s post. The BJP had shied away from projecting a CM candidate but with Assembly election results due on Sunday, hectic lobbying has begun for the top job.

Among the leading contenders is Captain Abhimanyu, a Jat leader whom BJP president Amit Shah described as somebody “with a bigger role to play in the state”. Abhimanyu, however, has lost three elections and was not even fielded in the recent Lok Sabha elections. He is also in a close contest with the INLD’s Raj Singh Mor at Narnaund constituency. Another Jat leader in the running is Om Prakash Dhanker, considered close to PM Narendra Modi.

Manohar Lal Khattar, who seems to be in a comfortable position at Karnal, is another strong contender and has the backing of the RSS. He, however, is a poll debutant and has no administration experience at any level. State BJP president Ram Bilas Sharma, a Brahmin, is another vying for the chief minister’s chair. While Sharma has administrative experience — he served as a minister in the then Bansi Lal government about two decades ago — he also has the dubious record of not having won an election, Assembly or Parliamentary, since 1996.

If the BJP does set experience as its criteria, that would bring two of its MPs — Rao Inderjit and Krishan Pal Gurjar — into the reckoning. Faridabad MP Gurjar, who has won four elections and had been leader of legislative party, is the other BJP parliamentarian in the running. He is considered to have both experience and a mass base.