Nayab Singh Saini stakes claim to form BJP govt in Haryana, to take oath tomorrow

Hours after being unanimously elected as the leader of the BJP legislature party leader, Nayab Singh Saini met Haryana governor Bandaru Dattatreya at Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh on Wednesday and staked claim to form the government in the state.
Saini, 54, will take oath as the chief minister of Haryana at Parade Ground in Sector 5, Panchkula, on Thursday morning in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh besides other senior party leaders.
Earlier on Wednesday, Saini was unanimously elected as the leader of the Haryana BJP legislature party, clearing the decks for his second innings as chief minister. The Haryana BJP legislature party meeting lasted less than an hour at the party office, Panch Kamal, in Panchkula under the supervision of Union minister Amit Shah and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav.
Bedi proposed, Vij endorsed
Narwana legislator Krishan Kumar Bedi proposed Saini’s name after which Ambala Cantt MLA Anil Vij endorsed it and all MLAs unanimously backed the choice.
Saini, who replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as the chief minister of Haryana in March, was the BJP’s chief ministerial face in the assembly elections.
The BJP secured its third consecutive term in the assembly polls in Haryana, results of which were declared on October 8. It won 48 seats against the Congress’ 37 in the 90-member assembly in the state.
Union power minister and former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, BJP Haryana election in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan, party affairs in-charge Satish Poonia and other senior BJP leaders also attended the legislature party meeting.
Humble beginnings to political success
Born on January 25, 1970, at Mirzapur Majra village in Ambala district, Saini, a low-profile leader from a backward class, began his association with both the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS, in 1996.
An arts graduate from BR Ambedkar Bihar University in Muzaffarpur, he pursued LLB from Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut.
He was first appointed the general secretary of the BJP’s Yuva Morcha in 2002 and became the president of the unit by 2005.
After facing defeat from his home constituency of Naraingarh in 2009, five years later, as the BJP rode to power in Haryana, Saini turned the tide, winning 39.76% of the votes from the seat. He became a member of the Khattar cabinet as minister of state between 2014 and 2019, and then entered Parliament as Kurukshetra MP in 2019.
On October 27, 2023, Saini replaced heavyweight Jat leader Om Prakash Dhankar as the Haryana BJP president.
Call it destiny or BJP’s style of politics, he was chosen to replace his political mentor Khattar as the chief minister in an abrupt change of guard on March 12 this year, when the party also broke its ties with alliance partner, the Jannayak Janta Party, in a bid to stave off anti-incumbency and went on to win the state for a historic third time.