Chandigarh: A day after he resigned from the post of Haryana’s chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar seems to brace for a challenge to retain the Karnal Lok Sabha seat replacing the sitting MP Sanjay Bhatia who had won the seat with a thumping margin of over 6 lakh votes in 2019 general elections. Khattar’s candidature was among the six candidates announced by the BJP on Wednesday. Haryana has 10 Lok Sabha seats.
According to party sources, Bhatia is likely to replace Nayab Saini as the party state chief who had on Tuesday taken over as Haryana’s new chief minister replacing Khattar.
However, Khattar, who was Karnal MLA since 2014, hopes to garner support of over 3.5 lakh Punjabi votes in the parliamentary constituency which also includes the towns of the adjoining Panipat district.
Another surprise sprung by the BJP in its list for Haryana is the name of Ashok Tanwar for Sirsa (SC) seat in place of sitting MP and former IRS officer Sunita Duggal. Tanwar, the former Sirsa MP who was defeated by Duggal was also Congress state president, who had joined the saffron party a few months ago.
According to party sources, while Duggal lost in the race for the ticket as she lacked popularity in the constituency this time, Tanwar, a young candidate still had a following.
The BJP has also decided to field Banto Kataria from Ambala (SC) seat, who is the widow of former senior party leader and three-time MP late Rattan Lal Kataria.
The party has, however, decided to repeat Dharambir Singh, its sitting MP from Bhiwani-Mahender and two Union ministers, namely Rao Inderjit Singh from Gurugram and Krishan Pal Gurjar from Faridabad seats.
