Haryana government formation: Manohar Lal Khattar sworn in as CM for second innings; JJP's Dushyant Chautala takes oath as deputy CM

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is set for a second term in Haryana, as part of a coalition with the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) after Manohar Lal Khattar and JJP chief Dushyant Chautala on Sunday took oath as chief minister and deputy chief minister, respectively. Haryana governor Satyadeo Narain Arya administered oath at a ceremony held at the Raj Bhavan on Diwali. BJP working president JP Nadda, Punjab governor VP Singh Badnore, former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, Union ministers Krishan Pal Gurjar, RL Kataria, and Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh chief ministers Trivendra Singh Rawat and Jairam Thakur, were present at the event. Additionally, former Haryana chief minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and the BJP’s partner in the NDA alliance, Shiromani Aakai Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal were also present.

Chandigarh: Manohar Lal Khattar takes oath as the Chief Minister of Haryana, at the Raj Bhawan. #HaryanaAssemblyPolls pic.twitter.com/SBqHELyaAk

— ANI (@ANI) October 27, 2019

Chandigarh: Dushyant Chautala takes oath as the Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana, at the Raj Bhawan. #HaryanaAssemblyPolls pic.twitter.com/iXr7oyFauk

— ANI (@ANI) October 27, 2019

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Dushyant’s father Ajay Chautala, who stepped out of the Tihar jail on Saturday on a furlough , also attended the event along with his mother, Naina, who has been re-elected as an MLA for the second time. Ajay is lodged in the Tihar jail in Delhi after his conviction in a teachers’ recruitment scam. On Saturday, Khattar was invited by the governor to form the government in the state, soon after the saffron party announced a deal with the JJP to form the next government. BJP announces alliance with JJP Addressing a press conference after his meeting with JJP leader Dushyant, Shah on Friday said that the decision to come together to form a government in Haryana had been taken in the wake of nature of verdict in the state. “Accepting the mandate by the people of Haryana, leaders of both parties (BJP and JJP) have decided that BJP-JJP will form the government together in Haryana. The Chief Minister will be from BJP and Deputy Chief Minister will be from JJP,” Shah said. Earlier on Friday, Chautala, a former MP, had told the media that his party was open to supporting any party which supports some of their demands including 75 percent reservation in government jobs for natives of Haryana under a common minimum programme (CMP). The JJP is likely to keep its senior partner on toes, asking it to implement the poll promises the fledgling outfit made to the people before the polls, PTI reported. Who is Manohar Lal Khattar? When Prime Minister Narendra Modi handpicked Khattar as Haryana’s chief minister in 2014, the decision took many by surprise. He did not come from the dominant Jat community, spoke Punjabi and had no administrative experience. But even as a first-time MLA, he was asked to head the first BJP government ever in the state. “There were people who used to say I am new and lack experience. Some even branded me an ‘anadi’ (novice). But now the very same people say I am not an ‘anadi’ but a ‘khiladi’ (player) of politics,” Khattar, 65, had said at several election meetings before the 21 October Assembly polls. Though the BJP in Haryana benefitted from the party’s continuing dominance at the national level, Thursday’s Assembly election results have put Khattar’s leadership under test. Notwithstanding the ruling party’s claims of providing a clean, transparent, corruption-free government, political analysts say that what worked to the BJP’s disadvantage was the strategy to consolidate the non-Jat vote in an apparent bid to counter Jat dominance in the state’s politics. Khattar joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) when he was 24 in 1977 and moved to the BJP in 1994. He first began working with Modi, who himself is an RSS paracharak, in 1996, when the senior leader was in charge of the state for the BJP. In 2002, Khattar was made the election in-charge of Jammu and Kashmir. He played a key role in many electoral campaigns and was the chairman of the party’s election campaign committee in Haryana in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Who is Dushyant Chautala? The results of the Haryana Assembly election possibly settled the debate on the legacy of former deputy prime minister and Jat stalwart Devi Lal in favour of his great grandson Dushyant. At 26, Dushyant became the youngest MP in 2014 when he was elected from Hisar, defeating Congress veteran Kuldeep Bishnoi. Five years later, he is leading a party and has been made Haryana deputy chief minister. In the Assembly polls, the parent Indian National Lok Dal, headed by Dushyant’s grandfather Om Prakash Chautala and uncle Abhay Chautala, was trumped by the breakaway JJP. The INLD could manage to win just one seat, slumping to its worst performance. How the numbers were stacked As early trends of the Assembly poll results trickled in on Thursday, it became evident that the BJP will not be able to reach its goal of winning 75+ seats on its own. Instead, the state ended up with a hung Assembly as the saffron party garnered 40 seats, still six short of the halfway mark of 46 needed to form the next government. The Congress, lead by Hooda in the state, won in 31 seats while JJP emerged as the “kingmaker” with 10 seats in the 90-member Assembly. While the BJP and Congress vied for an alliance with the JJP soon after the results were announced, Home Minister and BJP president Amit Shah on Friday said that the party had sealed a deal with JJP. The Congress hit out at the Chautala-led party for “betraying” the public by joining the BJP in a coalition government. “A government full of contradictions is coming to power in Haryana, obviously such a government will not last long. Those who betray the public and think that people will forget everything by the next election should know that the people will balance the account with those who have betrayed them,” Hooda’s son Deepender tweeted.

हरियाणा में अंतर्विरोधों से भरी सरकार बनने जा रही है, ज़ाहिर है ऐसी सरकार लंबी नहीं चल पाएगी।
जो लोग जनता व जनभावना से विश्वासघात करके ये सोचते हैं कि जनता अगले चुनाव तक सब भूल जाएगी, वो ये बात समझ लें जनता अपने से किए गये विश्वासघात का हिसाब समय पर पूरा करेगी।

— Deepender Singh Hooda (@DeependerSHooda) October 26, 2019

Former Union minister and Congress Haryana unit president Kumari Selja on Saturday also said that the BJP was so “power hungry” that “they did not accept people’s wish which was to see him (Khattar) out of power” in the state. She added that the JJP had campaigned against the BJP during the elections and is now forming the government with them. “They (JJP) asked for votes against the BJP (during election campaign) and now the public’s decision is not being respected by them,” she said. In addition to the JJP,  at least seven Independent MLAs — Dharampal Gondan, Nayanpal Rawat, Sombir Sangwan, Rakesh Daulatabad and Randheer Golan — have extended their support to the saffron party.     With inputs from agencies