Chandigarh, Oct 17 :
From losing an election in 2009 to becoming Haryana Chief Minister twice in a span of seven months in 2024, Nayab Singh Saini’s political journey has been nothing short of a miracle.
The 54-year-old Saini, who was sworn-in as Chief Minister along with 13 Ministers on Thursday, had lost his first election.
In 2009, Saini contested from Naraingarh assembly constituency in his home district Ambala and lost the election.
In the 2014 assembly election, when BJP came to power in Haryana for the first time during “Modi wave”, Saini was fielded from Naraingarh again and he had won the election. Later, Manohar Lal Khattar also included him into his cabinet.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Saini contested from Kurukshetra parliamentary constituency and won the elections. Last year, he was entrusted with the responsibility of presiding over the Haryana unit of the party.
Surprising move came in March this year, when the BJP suddenly decided to end its alliance with Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) just before the Lok Sabha election and Khattar was replaced with Saini.
Political observers termed the move as the BJP’s gamble to combat anti-incumbency of 10-year-rule. As Saini was not a member of Assembly, he contested byelection, held with Lok Sabha election, from Karnal assembly constituency, a seat vacated by Khattar and won.
Meanwhile, during the election campaign senior party leader Anil Vij, who had earlier in March had skipped Saini’s swearing-in, expressed his desire to become the Chief Minister of the state. The party leadership had to clarify that Saini was the party’s CM face.
Interestingly, as the party announced to contest assembly election under the leadership of Saini, political pundits were sceptical about the saffron party’s chances to score a hattrick.
Even exit polls predicted a Congress win on October 5 after polling was over for the 90-member assembly election. However, it was Saini who had said, “The exit polls have given a short-term joy of two days to the Congress and on October 8, the BJP will form the government and the Congress will blame EVMs for the loss.”
When results came in on October 8, exactly the same happened. The BJP, proving all the predictions wrong, won 48 seats. Three independents also extended their support to the BJP and it was clear that Saini was going to become a Chief Minister again.
