BJP appoints OBC MP Saini as Haryana party president
Political analysts say electoral and caste calculations appear to have catapulted the Lok Sabha MP to the top post as the Haryana chief minister apparently wanted a leader of his camp to head the state unit
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday appointed Lok Sabha MP Nayab Singh Saini, who hails from other backward classes (OBC) community, as Haryana BJP president replacing Om Prakash Dhankar, the powerful Jat community leader widely credited for expanding party base and preparing the cadre for the electoral slugfests in 2024.
Indeed, BJP’s move to hand over the baton of the party to Saini, 53, a politically lightweight and a first-time MP representing the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat, has left the party rank and file surprised.
Saini, who became MLA for the first time in 2014 and remained a minister, is considered a confidante of chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
“The national BJP president JP Nadda has appointed Om Prakash Dhankar as national secretary of the BJP and Nayab Singh Saini, MP, as Haryana BJP chief with immediate effect,” Arun Singh, national secretary of the BJP said in separate letters.
When Saini became MP in 2019, the BJP had not only won all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana but the saffron party candidates had also won with massive margins.
Political analysts say electoral and caste calculations appear to have catapulted the Lok Sabha MP to the top post as Khattar apparently wanted a leader of his camp to head the state unit.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election will be the first political test of Saini as state BJP chief. His appointment comes at a time when the BJP government is battling a huge anti-incumbency.
A Delhi-based Haryana watcher Professor Anant Ram, who retired as political science teacher from government college Bhiwani, said Saini’s appointment as BJP state chief reflects that the saffron party wants to focus on non- Jat voters.
“This seems to be a strategy to woo backward class voters,” he said.
“ Saini is very close to chief minister Khattar. His appointment depicts that Khattar is the real boss in Haryana BJP,” he said.
Saini’s appointment clearly points toward the BJP attempting to woo the OBC community. The population of the Saini caste is considered around 8% in Haryana with a sizable presence in pockets of Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, Ambala, Hisar and Rewari districts.
Political analysts say the outgoing chief Dhankar who became state BJP chief in July 2020 was emerging as a potential contender for a bigger role as his stature also grew after he resurrected the cadre in the last three years and prepared 3.5 lakh foot soldiers up to “panna level” with defined role ahead of the high stake electoral battles.
“The BJP’s reach is up to panna level (a page of the voters list in respective area.) A panna pramukh is responsible for reaching out to listed voters of his panna. That’s the extent BJP’s footprint in Haryana has witnessed under Dhankar,” a BJP leader said.
By giving the baton of the state BJP chief to Dhankar, the BJP’s central leadership had sent a conciliatory message to the politically boisterous Jat community that had been nursing grouses against the BJP after the 2016 violent Jat quota agitation.
Haryana has been experiencing sharp caste divisions in the wake of the violent quota agitation of 2016. The Jat community apparently constitutes about 25% of the state’s population, making them a singular dominant vote-bank.
Dhankar extended congratulations to his successor Saini via X (erstwhile Twitter).
Shortly before the BJP’s central leadership appointed the new state unit chief, Dhankar was holding a news conference in Chandigarh to mark nine years of the BJP in power in the state.
“No one is permanent here,” Dhankar, who was visibly downcast, said when asked about his term already ending and the possibility of the BJP appointing a new chief.
“A BJP worker is always prepared to take up any responsibility and role given to him. Ours is not a family-based party. It is a national party in which change from booth unit in-charge to national president is a natural process,” said Dhankar, a former minister who had started his innings in 1978 as pracharak of the RSS.
Another political observer said the appointment of Saini sends out a loud and clear message that the central leadership of the BJP is fully backing chief minister Khattar.
“It appears as if the central party leadership has this time gone by the likes and dislikes of CM even as Saini is not a better choice than dynamic Dhankar,” said an observer.
