State hopes for greater representation in Cabinet

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 25

With just over five months to go for Assembly elections in Haryana, the state’s newly elected Members of Parliament are hoping for better representation in the Union Cabinet during the second term of Narendra Modi government at the Centre.

The two new names likely to be considered are those of bureaucrat-turned-politician Brijendra Singh, who has been elected from Hisar, and Karnal MP Sanjay Bhatia, who comes from the RSS and is close to Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Sources have said Bhatia, state general secretary of the BJP, fits the bill of non-Jat politics perfectly while Brijendra, son of outgoing Union minister Birender Singh, can find a Cabinet berth as a replacement of his father and go on to become its Jat face in Haryana.

Further, his being a former bureaucrat will give him an added advantage, given Modi’s choice in the first term, where he inducted a few bureaucrat-turned-politicians into his Cabinet.

In the first term of Modi government, despite being a small state with only 10 seats, Haryana had three Cabinet berths. It was represented by Birender Singh, Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar. They represented the Jat, Ahir and Gujjar communities. The BJP is unlikely to overlook the caste balance in view of Assembly elections.

While Birender, a Rajya Sabha member, offered to quit soon after the party gave the Hisar ticket to his son, Inderjit and Gurjar had won from Gurugram and Faridabad, respectively, for the second consecutive time.

However, the sources have maintained that winning the seat will no longer be the sole criterion in deciding the faces who are likely to form a part of Team Modi at the Centre since the party is spoilt for choice given the clean sweep in Haryana.

Party leaders maintain that only “performers” will be accommodated as ministers in the second term while there is a big possibility of inducting newly elected MPs to give a certain freshness to the new Cabinet.

Since Haryana had three ministers in Modi government in the first term, the sources claimed that the second term could provide another chance of striking a caste balance in non-Jat politics of the BJP.

The party had made inroads into the Jat heartland and performed well in Jat-dominated districts and constituencies in the recently concluded parliamentary elections.

How they fit the bill

Sources have said Sanjay Bhatia, state general secretary of the BJP, fits the bill of non-Jat politics perfectly, while Brijendra, son of outgoing Union Minister Birender Singh, can find a Cabinet berth as a replacement of his father and go on to become its Jat face in Haryana.