New Haryana govt will be sworn in on Oct 17 in PM’s presence

Chandigarh, Oct 12 : The new BJP government in Haryana will be sworn in soon as the Chief Minister and his Council of Ministers will take oath on October 17 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

For the second time, Panchkula, near the state capital Chandigarh, will be hosting the swearing-in ceremony of the BJP government which Union Home Minister Amit Shah and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states will also attend.

The ceremony will be held at the Dussehra ground at 10 A.M. in Sector 5.

The new date was finalised after caretaker Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, the prospective incumbent, had a meeting with Home Minister Shah in New Delhi on Friday night.

Earlier, the swearing-in ceremony was planned on October 15, but owing to PM Modi’s availability on October 17 it was rescheduled, party leaders said.

In 2014, Panchkula was the venue for the swearing-in of Manohar Lal Khattar, the BJP’s first chief minister in the state, after the party won a majority with 47 seats in the 90-member Assembly.

At that time also, PM Modi had attended the ceremony.

Days ahead of government formation for the third time, Saini on Friday said 25,000 appointments would be made before the oath-taking ceremony.

Taking a jibe at the main Opposition, he said the Congress never rose above corruption and dynastic politics.

“In the past, they had won power by deceiving people in several states, including Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and others. The Congress has lost its credibility,” Saini told the media.

Congratulating the people and party workers on the formation of the BJP government for the third time, Saini expressed gratitude to the public for their support and announced that in line with a pre-election promise the examination results for 25,000 posts would be released soon even before the oath-taking ceremony.

A 10-member committee headed by the Panchkula District Commissioner has been set up by the Chief Secretary to make arrangements for the oath-taking ceremony.

Saini had met PM Modi and other senior BJP leaders in Delhi on Wednesday after scoring a spectacular hat-trick in Haryana by winning 48 seats, 11 more than the Congress.

Caretaker Chief Minister Saini, under whose leadership the party fought the high-octane electoral battle and overcame a 10-year anti-incumbency, may be retained as the CM, party leaders believe.

The BJP won a landslide majority by winning 48 seats in a House of 90. The Congress was the second-largest party with 37 seats, while the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) got only two seats.

Independent candidates who got three seats, extended unconditional support to the BJP, whereas Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) and Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) drew a blank.

The BJP Legislature Party is likely to meet a day ahead of the oath-taking ceremony in Chandigarh to elect its leader who will be the state’s new Chief Minister, most probably Saini, 54, a non-Jat but an Other Backward Class (OBC) leader.

Saini had replaced BJP veteran Manohar Lal Khattar as the Chief Minister in March, just two months before the Lok Sabha elections. Eight out of 10 ministers in the outgoing Saini Cabinet faced defeat.

The two who won were Mahipal Dhanda and Mool Chand Sharma from Panipat Rural and Ballabhgarh seats, respectively.

The party’s seven-time lawmaker, Anil Vij, is the senior-most in the party. He is among the frontrunners for a Cabinet berth, apart from Dalit lawmakers like six-time MLA Krishan Lal Panwar (Israna) and two-time MLA Krishan Bedi (Narwana), both loyalists of Khattar.

The prospective women Cabinet Ministers include first-timers Arti Rao (Ateli), daughter of Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh, and Shruti Chaudhry (Tosham), daughter of Rajya Sabha member Kiran Chaudhry. Arti is an OBC while Shruti represents the Jat community.