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Caste key factor in Team Khattar
Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 26
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has inducted ministers into his Cabinet based on caste and those representing different communities. Since most winning party legislators come from north and south Haryana, Khattar had no choice but to appoint ministers from constituencies along the GT Road or Ahirwal region.

Khattar has done a fine balancing act by trying to please all communities as he could not please all regions for want of legislators in central and western Haryana.

The newly sworn-in Cabinet, however, has only one woman in contrast to BJP’s pledge to give greater representation to women.

Ministers in Khattar’s Cabinet are spread across nine districts. Karnal is the only district that has two ministers — CM Khattar and Minister of State Karan Dev Kamboj (MLA from Indri).

Cashing in on the slogan of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’, Khattar said he will personally take care of regions that have no representation in the Cabinet. INLD strongholds such as Jind, Fatehabad Sirsa and Congress bastion Rohtak have no representation in the Cabinet. The Deswali belt (also a Congress stronghold), however, has two ministers, one each from Jhajjar and Sonepat.

Districts such as Mewat, Palwal, Bhiwani, Sirsa, Fatehabad, Jind and Kaithal have been left out, largely because people did not elect BJP MLAs.

The ministry has one Brahmin face in Ram Bilas Sharma (MLA from Mahendragarh), two Jat ministers, Capt Abhimanyu (MLA from Narnaund) and OP Dhankar (MLA from Badli), and one Punjabi face — Anil Vij (MLA from Ambala-Cantt). Kavita Jain (MLA from Sonepat) represents the Aggarwal community while Rao Narbir Singh (MLA from Badshahpur) is from the Yadav community.

Minister of State Bikram Singh Thekedar (MLA from Kosli) is a Yadav, while Krishan Kumar (MLA from Shahbad) represents Dalits. Karan Dev Kamboj (MLA from Indri) is from the Backward Classes. Inclusion of Ram Bilas Sharma and Abhimanyu was a foregone conclusion as they were strong chief ministerial candidates.

Apart from being one of the seniormost party leaders in the state, Dhankar is a prominent Jat leader and BJP’s kisan (farmer) face.

Anil Vij was leader of the BJP Legislature Party in the last Assembly while Kavita Jain was the lone woman representative from the party with him. Rao Narbir Singh Yadav’s appointment is being considered both as a reward to the Ahirwal region for giving 11 out of 11 seats to the BJP and to strike a balance among various factions within the party in the region.

The fact that the BJP has failed to give representation to Jat-dominated districts such as Jind, Sirsa and Fatehabad is bound to cause heartburn among people in these areas. Jind, also known as ‘Bangar land’ was reportedly ignored by the Congress too as it voted for the INLD.

People here were hoping that Uchana legislator Prem lata would be included as one of the Cabinet ministers. She defeated Dushyant Chautala.