Disquiet in Haryana BJP as Anil Vij wings clipped; Rao Inderjit, Bishnoi left in cold

Senior Haryana BJP leader and former home minister, Anil Vij, 61, has admirers across the state, cutting across communities and party affiliations. One can find the six-time MLA’s supporters in villages, at bus stands and in government-run buses.

Observers say the “prompt manner” in which Vij dealt with the complaints of the common people as the home minister in the previous Manohar Lal Khattar government built his public image as an “administrator who wants prompt results”.

It is in this context that Vij’s exclusion from the new BJP Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini has left many surprised. State BJP chief Saini replaced Khattar as the CM just weeks before the Lok Sabha polls.

BJP sources said by dropping Vij from the Saini Cabinet, the party leadership has sought to send out a clear signal that the “party is supreme”.

When the BJP won a majority in the 90-member Haryana Assembly in 2014 for the first time, Vij was seen as a front- runner for the chief ministerial position. However, the party picked first-time MLA Khattar for the job.

In the 2019 polls too, Vij was seen as a major claimant to the CM’s post. But Khattar again beat Vij in the race, with the latter allotted key portfolios like home and health.

On March 12 this year, when the BJP leadership, after suddenly snapping the party’s alliance with then deputy CM Dushyant Chautala’s JJP and effected a change of guard, it again ignored Vij, bringing in OBC leader Saini, a sitting MP from Kurukshetra, to helm the government.

A visibly upset Vij left midway the BJP Legislature Party meeting, which elected Saini as its new leader, and did not attend his swearing-in ceremony held later in the day.

Vij said he was also not consulted for the Cabinet expansion