Haryana BJP President Mohan Lal Badoli on Friday said that the State Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini would contest the Assembly election from Ladwa Constituency of Kurukshetra district. 

His announcement came a day after the BJP’s Central Election Committee (CEC) met for a brainstorming session on the list of candidates for Haryana.  

On Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president JP Nadda chaired the CEC meeting to finalise the ticket allottees in the presence of Saini, Badoli, former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, former State Home Minister Anil Vij and other members of the committee. 

Talking to reporters in New Delhi, Badoli did not divulge if Saini would also contest from Karnal.

Meanwhile, the CM’s name is the first one that the BJP has finalised, with the first list expected over the weekend. At present, Congress’ Mewa Singh is the MLA from Ladwa, which has a substantial number of voters from the Saini and Jat communities and is a part of the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha constituency that CM Saini represented before being chosen to succeed Khattar as chief minister. 

Ladwa will be Saini’s fourth constituency — Assembly or Parliamentary — over the past decade. In 2014, he won for the first time from the Naraingarh Assembly seat and five years later, successfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from Kurukshetra. March, this year, when former CM Manohar Lal Khattar stepped down and Saini succeeded him at the helm of the state, he won the bypoll from Karnal, the seat Khattar vacated.

Ladwa is currently held by the Congress, whose leader Mewa Singh won in 2019. It went to the BJP’s Dr Pawan Saini in 2014 and was won by the Indian National Lok Dal in 2009.

BJP chief Badoli further said, “At the CEC meeting, discussions were held for all 90 seats. A few of them (candidates) have been shortlisted, and after two days another meeting will take place to discuss the rest of the names. After this, the final decision will be announced.” Asked about Saini’s seat, Badoli said that he would be contesting the election from Ladwa. At present, he is the MLA from Karnal.
The BJP State Unit Chief said that following the CEC meeting, the first list of candidates is likely to be released after two days.

Badoli, a first-time MLA from Rai segment of Sonepat, said that as he is holding the post of state president in the organisation, he would not be contesting the elections this time. Badoli contested the Lok Sabha polls from Sonipat but lost to the Congress’s Satpal Brahmachari.  Badoli also said there had been no discussions regarding an alliance and asserted that the BJP would form the government with a clear majority.

In March, the BJP replaced Manohar Lal Khattar as Haryana Chief Minister with Saini, an OBC leader. Khattar, who won the parliamentary elections from Karnal, is now a Union minister. At the time he replaced Khattar, Saini was the BJP's Haryana Chief and the party's Kurukshetra MP. He won the bypoll from the Karnal assembly seat vacated by Khattar. Saini had won the assembly polls from the Naraingarh seat in Ambala district when BJP stormed to power in 2014. Elections to the 90-member Haryana Assembly will be held in a single phase on October 1 and the results declared on October 4.