With hold on south Haryana, why Rao Inderjit Singh is indispensable to BJP

While the BJP has declared Nayab Singh Saini as its CM face, ignoring Rao's claims again, his supporters keep referring to him as “bhaavi mukhyamantri” and he keeps flexing his muscles, drawing his clout from his disputed hold in South Haryana

Singh flexing his muscles and highlighting his importance to the party comes at a time when it is facing anti-incumbency and a resurgent Congress going into the Assembly elections. (File)

In June, Union Home Minister Amit Shah proclaimed that Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini would lead the party into the Assembly elections. This effectively projected Saini as the party’s CM candidate, a rare move for a party that seldom declares its CM face ahead of state polls.

However, this did not deter Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh’s supporters from referring to him as the state’s “bhaavi mukhyamantri (CM to be)”. In election meetings addressed by Rao, his supporters also raise slogans referring to him as a probable CM candidate. Earlier this week, Rao went to Rewari along with the party’s candidate from the seat, Laxman Yadav, where he told reporters, “This (dream of becoming CM) is not mine but the wish of the public. It is still the wish of the public that I should become the CM: Had south Haryana not supported the BJP in 2014 and 2019, Manohar Lal Khattar would not have become CM twice.”

Singh flexing his muscles and highlighting his importance to the party comes at a time when it is facing anti-incumbency and a resurgent Congress going into the Assembly elections. His supporters also believe he has been left shortchanged several times since he joined the party before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Though there was an influx of Congress heavyweights into the BJP following his entrance into the party — leaders such as Chaudhary Birender Singh and Dharambir Singh — and it is believed to have strengthened the BJP’s prospects in the Assembly elections later that year, Singh lost out to Manohar Lal Khattar in the CM race. He was overlooked in 2019 too and when the party replaced Khattar with Saini this March. After the Narendra Modi government returned to power in June, Khattar was promoted to the Union Cabinet while Singh remained a Union Minister of State.

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In an interview to a TV channel last year, Singh spoke of his chief ministerial ambitions. “There is no doubt that in our region (South Haryana) people have made and broken chief ministers. In 2014, the BJP would not have come to power had our people not come together. Our people protested that it was wrong to stand with Khattar, but no one listened and made him the CM. I harboured the ambition to become the CM and people shared these sentiments. When the government was formed, people felt that their leader was not chosen. But it was the party’s decision, and we had to follow it,” he said.

The Gurgaon MP’s supporters claim he wields influence in at least 22 Assembly constituencies in the region, a claim that the Congress, the principal Opposition party, strongly disputes. Singh’s supporters claim that the party has fielded at least eight candidates in the region on his recommendation. In addition to these seats, Rao’s close associate Dharambir Singh, the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh MP, said four to five tickets from his area should be seen as part of the Union Minister’s quota. While five years ago the party refused to field Singh’s daughter Aarti Rao, this time she is contesting from Ateli that is part of the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh parliamentary seat.

The Union Minister’s close aides said he was satisfied with the ticket allocation. His stock in the party has risen further because senior BJP leaders such as Ranjit Singh Chautala, the power minister, former Assembly Deputy Speaker Santosh Yadav, and former minister Karan Dev Kamboj left the party after being denied ticket for the Assembly polls. Kurukshetra BJP MP Naveen Jindal’s mother and India’s richest woman Savitri Jindal has filed her nomination papers as an Independent candidate from Hisar. Former state BJP chief Ram Bilas Sharma, who also comes from south Haryana, has also been left unhappy after being denied a ticket.

Though Rao Inderjit Singh himself has acknowledged the party leadership’s decision to project Saini as its poll face, his supporters have not given up hope. As Aarti Rao filed her nomination papers from Ateli, Dharambir Singh spoke of how in 1982 then Union Minister Bansi Lal had fielded his son Surender Singh in the Assembly elections so that it would be easy to vacate the seat and win it if he had an opportunity to become the CM. However, it was Bhajan Lal who succeeded in getting the top post back then. “For the first time, such a good chance is before us. This is not an election merely for the daughter (Aarti Rao),” Dharambir told the minister’s supporters.

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However, Rao Inderjit Singh’s critics point out that he was not made the CM even when the BJP almost swept south Haryana. With a revitalised Congress and anti-incumbency big factors, repeating that performance looks unlikely, they add. “In 2019, the BJP won 16 of the 22 seats in south Haryana but still Rao Inderjit Singh was not made the CM. This time, the Congress will win a majority of the seats, including in the south,” said senior Congress leader Captain Ajay Singh.

Belonging to the erstwhile family that ruled the Ahirwal kingdom — spread over present-day Rewari, Mahendragarh, Gurgaon and parts of Bhiwani, Dadri, Nuh, Jhajjar and Alwar in Rajasthan — Rao is the son of former Haryana CM Rao Birender Singh. Born in Rampura, Singh graduated from Delhi University’s Hindu College and went on to get a Law degree before joining politics at the age of 26. He made his Assembly poll debut from Rewari’s Jatusana on the ticket of the Vishal Haryana Party founded by his father Rao Birender, which merged with the Congress in 1978.