RSS man Manohar Lal Khattar is Haryana’s new chief minister

New Delhi, Oct 21: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has named Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister of Haryana after it secured a majority in the Assembly elections for the first time in the state. Khattar, a Punjabi, had worked as an Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak (a full-time RSS worker) for 40 years. A first-time legislator from Karnal, Khattar will be the second chief minister of Haryana who is not from the Jat community. Bhajan Lal was the first non-Jat chief minister of the state. He was elected as the BJP’s legislative party leader in a meeting in Chandigarh on Tuesday. Khattar is known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had worked with him between 1995 and 1998 when Modi was in-charge of Haryana. Khattar is a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Haryana, a state which is not known to be a stronghold of the Hindu nationalist parent of the BJP. On Tuesday, Khattar promised to give good and corruption-free governance in Haryana and all-round development of the state. He also thanked voters for giving mandate to the BJP for forming the government in the state. “I want to assure the public that we will carry out development in the state (Haryana) as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision. There will be no partiality on development front, which the state has experienced. There will be all-round development of Haryana…be it south or north Haryana,” Khattar said, after being elected as leader of BJP legislature party, which paved way for his becoming the first chief minister of saffron party in Haryana. “We will ensure good and corruption free governance in the state.” The BJP has likely chosen Khattar because 29 BJP lawmakers out of 47 in the new state Assembly are not Jats. The 60-year-old was fielded from Karnal, where Modi launched his poll campaign in Haryana. Among the other contenders for the chief minister’s job were Jat leaders Om Prakash Dhankar and Captain Abhimanyu. (News agency).