CM Saini in no hurry to come out of Khattar’s shadow

Love him or hate him but you can’t ignore Manohar Lal Khattar, former Haryana chief minister and currently Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, and Power.

It has been 10 months since his “forced exit” from Haryana, where he strode like a colossus for 10 years as the BJP’s first CM. He was replaced by his protege Nayab Saini. But the larger-than-life image of the RSS pracharak-turned-politician still looms large over the state.

A string of key appointments in the CMO, starting with his man Friday Rajesh Khullar to his other aides as OSDs, has led to speculation that the ex-CM continues to remote-control the state. “Physically he may be in Delhi, but his soul is in Haryana,” says a BJP veteran.

The party veteran may be right given Khattar’s interest in Haryana even as an affable Saini tries to come out of his mentor’s shadow. It is a tight-rope walk for Saini, who is using his political acumen to keep the party high command and ‘Team Khattar’ in good humour while navigating the administrative challenges.

Saini knows that he owes his meteoric rise to Khattar. With age and caste on his side, the ‘shishya’ apparently is in no hurry to outgrow his guru.

Like Saini, Khattar’s detractors in the saffron party know well his close bond with the RSS and PM Narendra Modi. His proximity with Modi goes back to the 1990s, when the two shared the same room, ate the same food—‘khichdi’, often cooked by Khattar—and rode the same motorcycle. The bond was so strong that when the BJP secured majority in Haryana in 2014, Khattar’s name as CM was a foregone conclusion, ahead of the more-fancied claimants.

With Khattar at the helm, the fourth Lal of Haryana—officially he is Manohar Lal—emerged on the state’s political horizon joining the three illustrious Lals—Devi, Bansi and Bhajan.

Though a political greenhorn at the time, an astute Khattar was quick to feel people’s pulse and learn tricks of the trade. He targeted institutional corruption by pioneering several reforms, including transparency in administration through extensive IT use. In a state notorious for corruption in job recruitments, Khattar started the “no kharchi, no parchi” system besides instilling transparency in the change-of-land-use regime.

The saffron party capitalised on Khattar’s initiatives, securing a second, and even an unlikely third term, a first in Haryana’s electoral politics. However, just before the 2024 general election, the BJP replaced an “arrogant” Khattar with a suave Saini to outsmart an over-confident but divided Congress. Many believed the saffron party had found a new poster boy in Saini with Khattar’s detractors citing Mirza Ghalib to explain his “exile”.

“Nikalna khuld se aadam ka soonte aaye hain lekin, Bahut be-aabru hokar tere kooche se hum nikle.”

But the irrepressible Khattar came back with a bang after winning the Karnal Lok Sabha seat with two powerful Union portfolios to boot. More significant was the return of ‘Team Khattar’ in the Haryana CMO.

Despite his youthful energy, humility and accessibility, Saini apparently has a long way to go before he comes out of his mentor’s shadow and leaves his mark on Haryana’s politics.