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Journalism of Courage
When the relatively inexperienced Nayab Singh Saini replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as Chief Minister of Haryana in March this year, the BJP wanted a new face for a party unit that was battling anti-incumbency of 10 years.
While the Lok Sabha elections were a bit of a setback — the BJP saw its tally drop from 10 to five — Wednesday’s results prove that the BJP’s gamble on Saini paid off.
An OBC face of the BJP, Saini seemed to have left no stone unturned as he went about ensuring that the BJP returns to power for a third straight term in the state.
The Saini government made a range of announcements, focusing particularly on the outreach to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs) amid a perceived Jat consolidation behind the Congress.
The promises were the trademark BJP sops but tailored to the realities of Haryana: 50,000 government jobs, free 100-square-yard plots to every family below the poverty line, free bus travel up to 1,000 km with the Haryana Antyodaya Parivar Parivahan Yojana (HAPPY) and the approval for unauthorised residential colonies.
Saini, who was declared the CM face before the results, particularly crafted his campaign on government jobs, which he said the BJP had given “on merit”, cornering the previous Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led government of allegedly giving jobs through “kharchi (favouritism) and parchi (bribes).”
Knowing that there was resentment among farmers against the BJP government primarily over the handling of the agitation at Delhi’s borders, Saini relied on the BJP’s schemes for the farmers in his campaigns.
Saini is also said to have met thousands of people every day, keeping an ear on the ground.
Saini, who is from Mirzapur Majra of Ambala district, is a law graduate. He is said to have met Manohar Lal Khattar during his days with the RSS and become close to him.
He contested the 2009 Assembly elections from Naraingarh but lost to Congress’s Ramkishan Gurjar. Then, in the 2014 Assembly polls, he threw his hat in the ring again from Naraingarh seat and won. Khattar rewarded him with the Mines, Geology and Renewable Energy ministry. He later held the Labour and Employment Ministry.
In 2019, he ventured on to the national scene, winning the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat by a margin of over 3.83 lakh votes.
In the recent Assembly polls, Saini contested from Ladwa as the party believed it was a safer seat than Naraingarh that went to the CM’s trusted lieutenant Pawan Saini. Pawan is a former Ladwa MLA who bagged the seat in 2014 but lost it to the Congress’s Mewa Singh five years later.
In his speeches in Ladwa, where he barely spent time, Saini would underline that he has to “travel to other constituencies” as the “BJP wants the CM to campaign in their seats”.
And the mark of approval came too.
At a rally on September 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Very few people can achieve this kind of popularity in such a small time. There is a reason why our chief minister has achieved it… Anybody from Haryana meets [me], praises our CM for enhancing the honour of our state. He (Saini) is a simple man. You all can see how he has risen from a backward class community and reached here, yet he maintains his simplicity and humble nature.”
