With Nayab Saini as Haryana poll face, BJP eyes OBC votes, bets on schemes in non-Jat outreach

Four months before the Haryana Assembly elections, the BJP leadership has announced that the party will contest the polls alone under the leadership of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, who is also the state BJP president.

In March this year, just a few months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the BJP leadership had sprung a surprise by replacing Manohar Lal Khattar with Saini as the CM. Khattar had been the CM for consecutive two terms since 2014. The BJP also cut its ties with its major ally, Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).

The 54-year-old OBC (Other Backward Classes) leader Saini was then the Kurukushetra MP besides being the state BJP chief. The BJP leadership’s move to name Saini as the replacement for Khattar, a Punjabi face, was aimed to counter anti-incumbency against the latter besides consolidating the OBC and non-Jat votes in favour of the party.

The BJP hoped that the move would help it retain Haryana’s all 10 Lok Sabha seats that it had won in 2019. But, in the recent polls, the party could only secure five seats, with the principal Opposition Congress winning the remaining five. The BJP’s vote share also plunged to 46.11% from 58.21% in 2019, while the Congress’s vote share shot up to 43.67% from 28.51% in 2024.

Last Saturday, at a meeting of the BJP’s extended state executive meeting at Panchkula, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the party will go solo in the Assembly elections under Saini’s leadership, expressing confidence that it would return to power with a majority for the third consecutive term.

Shah’s statement assumes added significance as it virtually projects Saini as the BJP’s CM candidate in the Assembly polls. It is rare that the BJP declares its CM nominee in a state ahead of the