Former Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar gets Power and Urban Affairs Ministry

Manohar Lal Khattar is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he worked with in the 1990s in party organisation.

Updated on: Jun 10, 2024, 21:53:08 IST

By HT News Desk

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Manohar Lal Khattar, the first chief minister of Haryana from BJP and Lok Sabha MP from Karnal, was made the Union Cabinet Minister for Power and Urban Affairs on Monday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi allocated portfolios to his Union council of ministers.

Karnal BJP MP Manohar Lal Khattar takes oath as minister during the swearing-in ceremony of new Union government, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Sunday. (PTI)

In the recently concluded Lok Sabha election, Khattar defeated Congress party’s Divyanshu Budhiraja. The 70-year-old ran for parliamentary elections for the first time after serving as chief minister from October 26, 2014, until his resignation on March 12, 2024.

Khattar joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1977 and became a full-time pracharak (worker) in 1980. He served in this role for fourteen years before moving to the BJP in 1994.

When the party nominated Khattar for the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, he resigned as MLA from the Karnal Assembly constituency, making way for his successor and the party’s state president, Nayab Saini.

Read: Narendra Modi 3.0 Cabinet's first decision: Centre to help construct 3 crore houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana

He made his electoral debut in 2014 and was elected to the Haryana Legislative Assembly from Karnal constituency. He also served as the chairman of the BJP's Haryana Election Campaign Committee for the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.

During a public gathering in Gurugram on March 11, Prime Minister Modi spoke about his friendship with Khattar. He mentioned that they used to take motorcycle rides in Haryana and worked together for the RSS.

Coming from an agricultural background, his family arrived in Haryana from Pakistan post-Partition. His family settled at Nindana, a village in Haryana's Rohtak district. He was born in Nindana in 1954.

During his first stint as chief minister, Khattar came under criticism over his handling of the February 2016 Jat quota stir, which saw large-scale violence and arson in several parts of the state.

The stir was followed by a flurry of violent incidents which claimed many lives in 2017, when Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted by a court in Panchkula in connection with rape of two of his disciples.

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