Upset Anil Vij skips swearing-in ceremony

Six-time MLA and senior-most minister in the outgoing cabinet, Anil Vij, 70, on Tuesday stayed away from the oath ceremony of the new cabinet in Chandigarh.

Even as his name was on the list of new ministers, outgoing chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that Vij chose to skip the swearing-in and stayed at Ambala.

Third in the rank after former chief minister Khattar and former deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala, Vij held home, health, AYUSH and medical education and research portfolios.

In the first cabinet of Khattar-led BJP government (2014-19), Vij was minister for health and sports.

During the oath ceremony at Raj Bhawan on Tuesday, Jagadhari MLA Kanwar Pal was sworn-in as minister after Kurukshetra MP Nayab Singh Saini in terms of seniority.

Earlier in the day, Vij walked out of the legislative party meeting being chaired by central observers as soon as Saini was picked as chief minister even as Karnal MP Sanjay Bhatia followed him in a huff to request him to return.

When asked by journalists for a sound bite, upset Vij asked them to speak to those who had arrived from Delhi (central observers) and left in a private vehicle.

A few hours later, the BJP leader reached his residence in Ambala Cantonment and a photo of him playing with a toddler went viral when the swearing-in was going on, 55 kilometers away.

In the evening, Vij, in a considerably jolly mood, met his party workers who had gathered at his residence and later left with them for Ambala City to savour some “golgappas” and “chaat”.

Often media friendly, there was no interaction with the reporters, even as a few of them had gathered around him for an interview. HT’s calls and text to Vij did not elicit any response.

At a press conference, Khattar said that Vij’s name was on the list of ministers, but it is in his nature that he gets upset quickly and agrees soon as well.

“Vij is our senior leader. I have known him since 1990, when he contested in a by-election, and I was a sangh pracharak. We worked hard to ensure his victory. There have been such instances in the past (when he gets upset) …. He was reached out but said that he was in no mood today (to join new cabinet). That’s fine. Such tasks can’t be done under pressure. But we will speak to him again, our new chief minister will also talk to him and also the central leadership,” the ex-CM told the reporters.

The differences between the two leaders during the 10 years of their tenure as cabinet colleagues are known to all, while Saini, former MLA from Naraingarh constituency of Ambala, is close to Khattar.

In 2015, when Saini was minister of state (MoS) for mines and Vij held the health portfolio, a bone of contention between the two arose, as the former held a “janata darbar” in the latter’s constituency.

Upset Vij even asked the former Naraingarh MLA to “concentrate on his own constituency” and spoke about taking up the matter with Khattar.

As Khattar mentions several incidents, Vij has been at odds with him on a number of occasions.

In December last year, Vij had stopped signing files from the health department over the alleged interference by the chief minister’s office (CMO) and agreed after two months following the removal of a senior bureaucrat.

Earlier in July, the minister had said that he had not received any intelligence input before the violence hit Nuh region and was first informed about the clashes by a private individual.

Most of the time, he would refuse to divulge facts and probe details with the media, saying that the chief minister had them, hinting at his past ire of the latter holding the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

The issue of keeping the CID was the first bone of contention between the two just weeks after the saffron party formed a government in alliance with the JJP in 2019.

In December 2021, Vij also offered to resign after Khattar had expressed his intent to divest him of the home department during a cabinet expansion.

During department reallocations earlier this year, Vij also lost two key departments – technical education and science and technology – as both merged into the higher education department under his cabinet colleague Mool Chand Sharma.

Even during the 2014 Haryana assembly polls, Vij was among the front-runners for the chief minister’s post after the party’s thumping victory, but Khattar, a one-time MLA, then was chosen instead.