Ahead of Haryana Assembly poll, BJP reposes faith in non-Jat Mohan Lal Badoli as party chief

Pradeep Sharma

Chandigarh, July 9

By appointing Mohan Lal Badoli, a Brahmin, as the state president, the BJP has reposed faith in another non-Jat face in the run-up to the October Assembly elections.

His journey so far

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• 1989: Joined the RSS
• 1995: Joined the BJP, made mandal president
• 2019: Became first BJP MLA from Jat-dominated Rai seat
• 2020: Became Sonepat district BJP president
• 2021: Elevated as state BJP general secretary
• 2024: Made member of state election committee

OBC-brahmin card

The BJP will go to the polls with two non-Jat faces — Nayab Singh Saini as the CM face and Brahmin Mohan Lal Badoli as state chief. The BJP is pinning hopes on non-Jats and urban votes to return to power third time in a row.

The appointment of Badoli as the party president by BJP national president Jai Prakash Nadda comes days after Union Home Minister Amit Shah named non-Jat and OBC leader and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini as the chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Assembly elections.

Badoli’s appointment is a clear indication that the saffron party is pinning hopes on non-Jat and urban votes to form government for the third time in Haryana.

In the backdrop of its below par performance in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP won five seats and conceded five seats to the Congress, the appointment of a non-Jat face as the BJP state chief seemed to be a foregone conclusion.

BJP sources said since the Jats, who accounted for around 25% vote share in Haryana, rallying around Congress strongman and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the appointment of a Jat leader as the state BJP chief was out of question. “The OBCs, comprising over 30% voters in Haryana coupled with Brahmins (around 12%), would form a formidable combination in the Assembly elections in case the Jat vote is divided among the Congress, JJP and the INLD,” the sources asserted.

In the wake of this, the party zeroed in on the Brahmin face Badoli to relieve Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini of additional responsibility of the state unit chief. Besides being the sitting MLA from Rai (Sonepat), Badoli is currently the party’s state general secretary.

Born in 1963, Badoli joined the RSS in 1989 and has been an organisational man serving as mandal president in 1995. In 2020, he was elevated as the BJP district president and later as state general secretary in 2021. While he was the first BJP MLA from the Jat-dominated Rai Assembly constituency in 2019, Badoli lost the recent parliamentary polls by 21,816 votes to Congress’ Satpal Brahamchari from Sonepat seat.