BJP picks Lt Gen Vats for Haryana RS seat

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, march 11

Lt Gen DP Vats (retd) has been chosen by the BJP for the lone Rajya Sabha seat from Haryana going to polls on March 23. Dr Anil Jain, in charge of the BJP in Haryana, has been nominated from Uttar Pradesh.

  Lt Gen Vats hails from Hisar and retired as Director- cum-Commandant of the Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. On May 11, 2011, the then CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda had appointed him chairman of the Haryana Public Service Commission. Denied a Congress ticket in the 2014 Assembly polls, he had joined the BJP.

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At present, Lt Gen Vats is Chief Executive Officer and Chief Adviser at Maharaja Agarsen Medical College and Research Institute at Agroha in Hisar. 

Lt Gen Vats is a member of state working committee of the BJP now.

Dr Anil Jain hails from Ferozabad in Uttar Pradesh and is considered to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah. 

His name was also being discussed  as a candidate from Haryana, but sources said with the state Assembly polls due next year, the ruling party did not want to give an impression that an outsider had been nominated.