Former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will contest the Lok Sabha elections from the Karnal constituency on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket. Mr Khattar resigned as Chief Minister this week and his party colleague Nayab Singh Saini took over as Chief Minister. A seasoned politician, who has been a member of the Haryana assembly since 2014, Mr Khattar will now contest his first Lok Sabha polls.
Here are some facts about Manohar Lal Khattar:
1) First in his family to pursue studies beyond class 10, Mr Khattar attended Neki Ram Sharma Government College in Rohtak. During his graduation years at Delhi University, Mr Khattar, 69, ran a shop near Sadar Bazar. He comes from Nindana village of Rohtak district.
2) In 1980, Mr Khattar became a full-time pracharak for RSS and continued the role for 14 years.
3) The former Haryana Chief Minister joined the BJP in 1994 and soon became the party’s national executive member. He played a key role in the BJP’s victories in states such as Punjab, Haryana and Chhattisgarh. In 2004, he was given organisational responsibilities across 12 states, including Delhi and Rajasthan. Mr Khattar was the General Secretary (Organisation) for Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh.
4) He served as the Chairman of the BJP’s Haryana Election Campaign Committee for the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. After winning the 2014 assembly polls, Manohar Lal Khattar was sworn in as the chief minister. He became Chief Minister for the second time in 2019 after BJP stitched an alliance with Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).
5) Mr Khattar resigned as Haryana Chief Minister on March 13. A day later, his name was announced as the BJP candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Karnal constituency. Mr Khattar replaces the sitting BJP MP Sanjay Bhatia, who defeated Congress’ Kuldeep Sharma by 6,56,142 votes in 2019.