Chandigarh: 54-year-old Nayab Singh Saini is a low profile OBC leader. He was sworn-in as Haryana's new Chief Minister at the Raj Bhawan here on Tuesday evening.
Saini rose through the ranks in the BJP and was unanimously elected as the leader of the state BJP's legislature group at a meeting held here on Tuesday. Considered as a confidante of outgoing Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar (69), Saini will be replacing the BJP strongman whose second term as CM was going to end in October.
Saini, belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC), was appointed as Haryana BJP chief in place of Om Prakash Dhankar. Saini's appointment as the state BJP chief in October was seen as the party's move to strengthen its hold over the OBC community and non-Jats.
Saini was born on January 25, 1970 in a village called Mirzapur Majra in Ambala district. A law graduate, he enjoys cordial terms with Khattar, with their relationship going back to their RSS days.
Saini was also a minister in the Khattar cabinet between 2014 and 2019. He was a legislator when he fought the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. In 2019, the BJP was victorious on all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana with the party candidates winning with massive margins.
Saini's name as new chief minister was announced after a meeting of BJP MLAs which was held at Haryana Niwas here. During the past three decades, Saini rose through the ranks in state BJP and also held the position of district president and general secretary of state BJP Kisan Morcha. He was district general secretary of state BJP's youth wing in 2002 for Ambala and became the district president three years later.
He became MLA from Naraingarh assembly segment in 2014, when the BJP came to power in Haryana for the first time on its own strength. In the 2019 LS polls, Saini had defeated his nearest rival, Congress' Nirmal Singh from the Kurukshetra seat, by a margin of 3,84,591 votes. Saini, who was a minister in the Khattar cabinet, was fielded in 2019 from Kurukshetra seat after sitting MP R K Saini rebelled. (With PTI inputs)
