‘Modi wave’ gave BJP Haryana in 2014, but party is looking at CM Khattar this time

In 2014, Khattar was a surprise pick as Haryana CM but in the five years since, he has risen to become the face of the party's poll campaign in the state.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar

Karnal: Five years ago, the BJP’s campaign in the Haryana assembly elections of 2014 hinged on the then newly-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

Riding on its success in the Lok Sabha elections that year, the BJP formed its first government, by itself, in Haryana and elevated a little-known RSS-linked man as the state’s chief minister. 

Since then, from just being a cog in the wheel of the party, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s political career has witnessed the proverbial meteoric rise, with him becoming the face of the party and also a household name in Haryana.

Such has been the rise that as the month-long electioneering drew to an end Saturday, the party’s campaign has centered completely around Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.    

Manohar sarkaar, imaandar sarkar”, “Manohar sarkaar vikas apaar” are the two slogans on which the BJP is fighting the high stakes 21 October assembly elections. 

The strategy, however, should come as no surprise. A first-time MLA and surprise choice as chief minister, 65-year old Khattar has since led his party to successive victories in almost every election — from panchayat and local bodies polls to bypolls and finally, the parliamentary elections held earlier this year. 

It is an aspect that he is not averse to pointing out. “People used to say I am an anadi, but now they say I am a khiladi,” he now acknowledges in his rallies.

And unlike the 2014 assembly elections when the BJP had not named anyone as its CM candidate, this time Khattar’s role has been repeatedly and emphatically announced by the party’s top leaders.

“These elections are crucial for Khattar saab. The results will determine if he is a shooting star or will he be counted among Haryana’s lal chief ministers (Devi Lal, Bansi Lal and Bhajan Lal),” points out Balwinder Singh, a shop owner in Ambala.

All the Lals have served multiple terms as chief ministers.

Leading from the front

The BJP had set its sights on Mission75+ aimed at winning more than 75 of the 90 assembly seats, and Khattar was at the heart of the campaign. Starting with a 16-day non-stop Jan Ashirwaad Yatra in August, the chief minister has been in active election mode since. In the past month, he addressed over 75 rallies in support of BJP candidates.

His own achievements were central to his speeches — an “imaandaar sarkaar” compared to a “parchi–kharchi kee sarkaar”. He prided in being a “faqir” who had no dynasty to promote, compared to the “parivaar vaadi” dynasts who had ruled the state.

“Those who thought Haryana was their riyasat are now in “hirasat”, he tells crowds referring to former chief minister and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) chief Om Prakash Chautala and his elder son Ajay Chautala who are in jail serving a ten-year sentence in a teachers recruitment scam.

Fighting to win, he openly flaunted his closeness to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and used the central government’s decision to scrap Article 370 to the hilt in his speeches. 

The speeches, however, haven’t been without trouble. His scathing and sometimes inappropriate comments have landed him in controversies.

“The chief minister also barely campaigned on his own seat (Karnal). We saw him only on hoardings during elections,” says Randhir Singh, a Karnal resident. 

Khattar won the Karnal assembly seat in 2014 by a margin of over 63,000 votes. This time, he is up against Tarlochan Singh of the Congress and dismissed BSF jawan Tej Pratap Yadav of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).

The once virtual nobody

Khattar’s political role prior to the 2014 assembly elections was limited to a few BJP-RSS core groups. In fact, he was among the little-known BJP candidates in the fray then. When the BJP registered an astonishing victory in the elections, Khattar was announced as Haryana’s chief minister.

The announcement shocked relatively better known BJP leaders and resulted in stories about Khattar’s closeness to Modi having landed him the top job. 

“I am an insider and I know that some senior leaders even lodged a protest that they had been ignored for a man who had only done computer work for BJP,” said a BJP worker in Chandigarh. “They hoped Khattar will lose the job in no time given that he had no administrative experience.”

The bureaucrat politician

While the chief minister’s lack of administrative experience showed in his early years, Khattar has since managed to turn it around.  

Khattar’s complete dependence on bureaucrats and training at their hands turned him almost into a bureaucrat politician — factually correct and working on borrowed ideas. 

The first half of his rule lacked vision and his focus remained on three RSS-backed subjects — gau rakshaks, revival of Saraswati river and the Gita Mahotsav to promote the Bhagvad Gita.

The nadir of his administration came in February 2016 when during the week-long violent Jat reservation agitation, Khattar’s government didn’t know how to react, almost frozen with shock. 

When the agitation ended, it had led to the killing of two dozen people and property worth crores damaged. Khattar’s “incompetence” was the talk of the town.

“I can never forget the Jat agitation. We hid at the back and were scared that our petrol station would be burnt and we will all die,” says Mohit, an employee of a petrol pump near Murthal. “Jats have been spoiled by other leaders. They should not come to power.”

The chief minister, however, was helped by the fact that the opposition failed to capitalise on the issue.

The Congress, a divided house, failed to fill in the political vacuum following the Jat agitation. But the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) made the most of it. Khattar’s “indecisiveness” was juxtaposed against INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala’s strong man image.

But INLD’s resurrection was cut short. Political ambitions of its leaders led to an ugly split in the party last year. It is now a pale shadow of its former self, sliced to create the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP).

Khattar’s revival

With virtually no opposition, Khattar went for the kill, firmly cementing his hold on governance. He resisted political pressures and decided that government recruitments in the state will be only on merit. The decision paid him rich political dividends. He also brought transparency in governance through e-services.

“One of my relatives’ son got a job in the SC category. Earlier, no one cared for us. Now, Modi is working for the poor,” says Prem, a vegetable vendor in Karnal who says he will vote for the lotus (BJP’s election symbol).

Not everyone, however, is enthused by the job drive. Dhirmal, a coaching centre teacher in Karnal city, says Khattar government has increased expectations and is now not able to fulfil them. 

“Because 70,000 jobs were given, lakhs of students rushed to appear for 4,000 clerk posts. What happened? It led only to discontentment,” he said. “There are thousands on waiting lists of teachers’ exams waiting to be called. There were so many mistakes in the HCS examination and no one bothered.”

New schemes and scams

By the end of his term, Khattar was visualising new schemes. He launched the Mukhyamantri Parivar Smriddhi Yojana ahead of the assembly polls. The scheme promises social security to families in the form of life insurance, crop insurance and pension-related benefits.

What Khattar failed in abysmally was to control crime in the state, especially against women.  

Also, while Khattar managed to retain the image of an honest and sincere politician, whispers of his team indulging in corruption started doing the rounds. The chief minister was forced to order probes in the transport scam and the SC post-matric scholarship scam.

Punjabi by nature

Khattar is one of the few Punjabi chief ministers of a state where politics has been dominated for decades by dominant community — Jats. And his being a Punjabi has helped him politically. Under his leadership, the BJP is believed to have consolidated the non-Jat votes.   

The BJP put up non-Jat candidates on traditionally Jat seats in the bypolls and the Lok Sabha election, and wherever needed Khattar has played the Punjabi card as well. The experiment has worked well as the party swept the Lok Sabha elections winning all 10 seats.

“All castes lived together in Haryana till BJP came and started dividing them for political power,” says Virender Pandit Kala of Gorhgia village in Uchana. “Khattar made sure that Jats are demonised and has gathered all other castes against them.”

In these elections, the party has fielded even lesser number of Jat candidates than it did in 2014. The party has preferred candidates from backward castes and other non-Jat castes. And this despite the fact that many Jat leaders belonging to the INLD defected to BJP ahead of the polls.

• The copy has been updated to correct the fact that all Lals served multiple terms as chief ministers.