Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini is set to contest the bypoll for the Karnal assembly seat. The seat was recently vacated by his predecessor Manohar Lal Khattar after the Bharatiya Janata Party carried out a major shake-up in the state. The bypoll will be held in Haryana on May 25, along with the general election for the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
After the saffron party named Saini as its candidate for the Karnal assembly bypoll, he shared a post on 'X' and expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief J P Nadda, Khattar and the party's central leadership.
Saini, who is the BJP's Haryana unit president and MP from Kurukshetra in the outgoing Lok Sabha, was sworn in as the chief minister along with five ministers on March 12, hours after the resignation of Khattar and his cabinet.
On March 13, Khattar resigned as an MLA from the Karnal assembly seat and hours later, was named as the BJP candidate for the Karnal Lok Sabha seat. "From today, our chief minister (Saini) will look after the Karnal assembly constituency," Khattar had said in the assembly while announcing his resignation.
After taking over as chief minister, Saini needs to get elected as an MLA within six months.
Meanwhile, the Congress held a meeting of its leaders from Delhi and Haryana on Wednesday and resolved to ensure a "grand success" of a March 31 rally of the INDIA bloc against Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal's arrest by the ED.
Congress general secretary, organisation, K C Venugopal addressed the preparatory meeting of the grand old party's Delhi and Haryana leaders. The meeting was attended by Congress general secretary in-charge of Haryana and Delhi Deepak Babaria, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Arvinder Singh Lovely and the party's Haryana unit chief, Udai Bhan.