Haryana BJP has been rewarded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for their thumping victory in the State, with two Cabinet berths. Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjit Singh and Faridabad MP Krishan Pal Gurjar have been inducted in his Council of Ministers on Monday.
Both these non-Jat leaders, from the Jat heartland, took their oath as Minister of State (MoS), at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday. Rao has sworn in as MoS for Statistics and Planning and Defence.
All the party leaders and workers across the State expressed their jubilation by bursting fire crackers and distributing sweets at different district headquarters, till late in the evening.
Three times MP from the State, Rao Inderjit Singh was expected to be included in Modi’s Cabinet, as he was also called at Gujarat Bhawan on Monday morning by India’s 15th Prime Minister.
BJP high command is seeing Rao Inderjit as the party’s new face from Haryana, after he deserted the Congress just before the general elections. He was one of the strong opponents of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and had also raised his voice against Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law, Robert Vadra’s land deals in the state and demanded a CBI enquiry.
However, Faridabad MP and former State president of the BJP, Krishan Pal Gurjar, succeeded in reserving a berth in the Modi Cabinet, giving a big jolt to Ambala MP Rattan lal Kataria, who was been seen as a front runner for the post of Council of Ministers.
Kataria’s name was strongly backed by Anil Vij, sitting MP from Ambala and leader of opposition in Haryana Vidhan Sabha, but it turned out to
be futile.
It is been speculated that the move of rewarding the non-jaat leaders in the state by the BJP high command might be the prognosis of playing the non-jaat card in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana, which is to be held in the month of October this year.
Meanwhile, the popular sentiments in the state reflect that the people are fed up with the jaat-leaders, who have been the power center for long time. The Congress government in Haryana led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who himself is a jaat, is already facing anti-incumbency as a result of which the party suffered a crushing defeat in the recently held elections, by retaining only a seat out of ten lok-Sabha constituencies.
State BJP President, Ram Bilas Sharma welcomed the new ministers in the Modi led BJP government, especially the ones hailing from Haryana. He said that Modi era has dawned over the country and it is going to stay here for a longtime, as it aims for the welfare of the citizens of the country.
More than two dozen senior party leaders attended Modi’s swearing in ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan on Monday.