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Journalism of Courage
Following its record third straight win in Haryana, the new BJP government headed by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, which is set to be sworn in on Thursday, is likely to see more women ministers than of its previous Cabinet. Only one woman minister has been in the Cabinet at a time during the ten-year rule of BJP in Haryana.
Krishna Gahlawat
Gahlawat (62) hails from the Jat community and won the election from Rai, a seat seen to be a stronghold of former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and which she lost in 2014.
Gahlawat has served as a minister in the Bansi Lal-led BJP-Vikas Party government in 1996. BJP insiders said the party might give her a Cabinet berth to expand its base in the Jat belt of Sonipat, Rohtak, and Jhajjar.
Arti Rao
A first-time MLA from Ateli who won by a narrow margin of 3,085 votes, 45-year-old Arti has been a national skeet shooting champion for a record 15 times and was appointed as the president of the Haryana Para Sports Association last year. Her father Rao Inderjit Singh, a former Rewari royal, joined the BJP ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He has been a major influential force in South Haryana, a region that has significantly contributed to the party’s victories in the state since 2014.
His supporters earlier projected him as the “bhavi mukhyamantri (CM-to-be)” but since the BJP declared Saini as its face, they have been pushing the party to give Arti “her due political share” and are seeking the Deputy CM’s post for her.
Shruti Choudhry
A law graduate, 49-year-old Shruti Choudhry crossed over to the BJP from the Congress with her mother Kiran ahead of the Assembly polls. A former MP from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, she won the Tosham seat by more than 14,000 votes. While her supporters are confident she will become a minister, Shruti is more cautious. “Such decisions are taken by the party high command,” she said when asked about her chances of finding space in the Cabinet.
Sources said she was likely to be given a key portfolio.
Savitri Jindal
India’s richest woman and mother of BJP’s Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal, Savitri Jindal is the chairperson of the O P Jindal Group. She contested the polls as an Independent after the BJP denied her a ticket.
Savitri, who belongs to the influential Baniya community, joined politics after her husband’s death in a helicopter crash in 2005 and won the 2005 Hisar Assembly bypoll. She has twice served as a minister in the previous Hooda governments. She lost the 2014 poll from Hisar and did not contest the 2019 elections. She joined the BJP along with Naveen before the recent Lok Sabha polls.
Others in the race
The BJP is looking for fresh faces as only two ministers – Mahipal Dhanda and Mool Chand Sharma – won the Assembly polls while seven others lost. Names of senior BJP leaders and former ministers Anil Vij, Rao Narbir Singh, Krishan Lal Panwar, Vipul Goel, and Krishan Bedi, three-time MLA Harvinder Kalyan, former Deputy Speaker Ranbir Gangwa, and former MP Arvind Sharma are doing the rounds.
