Importance of being Nayab Singh Saini: BJP’s Haryana OBC face to key player in Punjab push

A second-time CM, Saini has seen a meteoric rise in his political career since his election as the BJP MLA for the first time from Ambala’s Naraingarh in the 2014 polls.

To offset “anti-incumbency” in the last year’s Assembly polls, the BJP had, in a stunning move, replaced the then CM Manohar Lal Khattar with Saini in March 2024, despite the fact that the latter was then an MP from Kurukshetra. In another significant move, the BJP also projected Saini as its CM face in the October 2024 polls, which the party clinched to pull off a hattrick, handing a shock defeat to the Congress which was widely tipped for a comeback.

Under Saini’s leadership, the BJP returned to power in Haryana with 48 seats — higher than its respective tallies of 47 seats in 2014 and 40 in 2019.

BJP insiders say Saini’s leadership has filled a crucial gap for the party in Haryana, where it had lacked a prominent OBC leader. His community, Sainis, has a notable presence in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, which adds to his influence. His relatively younger age and proximity to the BJP leadership are also seen to have given him an advantage as compared to his rivals within the party.

The OBCs make up nearly one-third of the population in Haryana and Punjab. In Haryana, Sainis account for about 5% of the population, having influence in several Assembly constituencies in various districts including Kurukshetra, Ambala, Hisar, Karnal and Yamunanagar.

In Punjab, Sainis are said to be more in numbers than Haryana, having influence in over 10 constituencies in Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr (Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar), Jalandhar, Ropar (Rupnagar) and Gurdaspur.

Last Sunday, Saini was the chief guest at an event organised by the All India Saini Seva Samaj in Gurgaon to commemorate the birth anniversary of social reformer Mahatma Jyotiba Phule. Saini shared the stage there with senior OBC leaders from the BJP-led NDA from different states, including Uttar Pradesh Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya, former Maharashtra Deputy CM Chhagan Bhujbal, and Rajya Sabha MPs Upendra Kushwaha and Kalpana Saini.

“It’s not only Haryana, the CM has worked hard in the Assembly elections in Maharashtra and Delhi elections too, where the party assigned him the campaign duty,” a Haryana BJP leader close to Saini said. “For the November 2024 Maharashtra polls, Saini campaigned in six constituencies, which have a considerable presence of Saini voters. The BJP won all of them. During the February 2025 Delhi polls, Saini campaigned in 17 constituencies having sizeable numbers of people from Haryana. The party won 16 of these seats.”

Saini’s media secretary Praveen Attrey said: “Saini has earlier served as the national vice-president of the BJP’s OBC cell. Not only among OBCs, his acceptance has increased in every section of the society.”

The BJP leadership has deployed Saini among other leaders to do the ground work for the party in Punjab which continues to be a huge challenge for it. The party drew a blank in the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab, while managing to win just 2 seats in the 2022 Assembly polls there. Saini’s frequent visits to Punjab are seen as part of the party’s attempts to mobilise OBC support ahead of the 2027 polls.

In March, a group of farmers from Punjab including 15-20 village sarpanches, mostly youths, had met Saini to invite him for various programmes.

Saini said: “The youth and farmers of Punjab have expressed faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies. The people of Punjab are disillusioned with both the AAP and Congress and are now moving toward the BJP.”

Saini’s critics, however, argue that his increasing efforts to reach out to the OBCs, even beyond Haryana, mark a bid to step out of the shadow of his predecessor Khattar, who is currently the Union Minister.

Saini calls Khattar his “guru”. “Yes, we are guru and chela (disciple). I never denied this,” he had said earlier.

The Opposition leaders have however maintained that Saini’s Punjab outreach may not yield significant dividends for the BJP.

AAP national media in-charge Anurag Dhanda said, “Saini has not been able to run the government in Haryana smoothly because of the interference by Khattar. So, he is passing the time by moving away from Haryana.” He also claimed, “Neither the BJP had earlier anything in Punjab nor it would have in the future. Before commenting on the Punjab government, Saini should show better performance than Punjab in any field.”