Surname blues for Haryana CM after Jat quota agitation

Haryana’s chief minister perhaps is left to deal with an uncanny situation. It’s about his surname—Khattar.

Slander over his political greenhorn status, often free-flowing from his adversaries, may have got the first time MLA and the chief minister accustomed to many such outpourings, but it’s his surname used in public glare that has left him uneasy.

Khattar prefers to be addressed as just Manohar Lal (ML) and not Khattar. Now critiques may discount it as a ploy to keep his non-Jat lineage under wraps perhaps even more after the escalating divide between Jats and non-Jats following the recent Jat agitation in Haryana. However, Manohar Lal has a different take on this.

The chief minister says he does not want people to suffix Khattar with his name. “I was an RSS pracharak till 1994, and no one knew my caste at that time...Even today, I don’t like it when people use Khattar after my name. I am just Manohar Lal. That is enough,” the chief minister said on the floor of the House.

Espousing egalitarian philosophy or otherwise, but the chief minister means business when he says he is not to be addressed as Khattar. Officials press statements issued by the government make sure the chief minister is named Manohar Lal and not Khattar.

His name plate outside his workplace in the chief minsters office is minus Khattar. His residence, too, reads Manohar Lal only.

The chief minister never spoke his mind on this issue at a platform as big as the state Assembly. His appeal of sorts to “free him of the Khattar” address came while he was speaking during the discussion on the recent Jat quota violence that left 30 dead, and 320 injured, including 72 from the security forces.