How Khattar became Haryana’s ‘fourth Lal’

CHANDIGARH: Manohar Lal Khattar, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, was a surprise choice as the Haryana chief minister when the BJP won the 2014 assembly polls in the state.
Written off by politicians then, Khattar has had the last laugh. Those who predicted that he would not even his complete his term have been silenced. Khattar has been working at the grassroots level since 1993 and been engaged with active politics in the state since 2000.
He consolidated his position first with the BJP’s sweep in the mayoral elections in parts of the state, followed by the Jind bypoll victory.The party’s clean sweep of all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 elections further cemented his position.
The state’s first Punjabi speaking chief minister managed to earn the goodwill of voters by promising to end corruption, especially in recruitment for government jobs, upgrading infrastructure and implementing welfare schemes. Hailing from a community that forms just 8% of the total population in Haryana, Khattar and his strategists focussed on winning over the minority non-Jat voters.
Jats have largely dominated politics in the state, and after the violence during Jat quota stir, non-Jat communities started gravitating towards the BJP.

Khattar, too, is trying to establish himself as a credible non-Jat leader. “You should give credit to our mission of bringing dynasty politics to an end. We have given the slogan of ‘Haryana Ek Haryanvi Ek’. Unlike my predecessors, who only furthered their own cause, we have worked for everyone,” Khattar told TOI recently during the Jan Aashirwad Yatra across the 90 assembly constituencies of the state.
BJP and its activists are, however, wary of using the term ‘non-Jat’ leader for Khattar. “This is not our culture in the BJP. Such slogans and terms have been coined by those indulging in caste politics,” said Awasthi.
Politics in Haryana has revolved around three Lals — INLD founder Devi Lal, Congress party’s Bansi Lal and Bhajan Lal — and the results of the assembly elections will decide if chief minister Khattar has been accepted by the people as the ‘fourth Lal’ of Haryana.
Bhajan Lal, who broke away from Congress to set up Haryana Janhit Congress, was a prominent non-Jat chief minister. The man, identified as Chanakya of Haryana politics and master of horse trading and originator of the Aya Ram Gaya Ram politics in the state, had managed to break the hegemony of the Jat leaders in the state at the time.
His opponents are not ready to concede his position as a credible non-Jat leader yet. Ravinder Rawal, a Punjabi leader from Congress and Bhajan Lal loyalist said, “Chaudhary Bhajan Lal was a mass leader. Both Bhajan Lal and CM Khattar have their own identities and should not be compared,” he said.