Haryana cabinet expanded with eight new ministers, no place for Anil Vij

Chandigarh: The Nayab Singh Saini government in Haryana carried out its first cabinet expansion on Tuesday by inducting eight party MLAs as ministers.

Senior BJP leader and former home minister Anil Vij did not find a place in the Saini-led cabinet.

Saini and five ministers took oath last week. Haryana can have a maximum of 14 ministers, including the chief minister.

Governor Bandaru Dattatreya administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new ministers at the Raj Bhavan here.

BJP MLA from Hisar Kamal Gupta was the first one to be administered oath as cabinet minister.

Gupta took oath in Sanskrit. He was a minister in the previous M K Khattar cabinet.

Thereafter, Badkhal MLA Seema Trikha, Panipat Rural MLA Mahipal Dhanda, Ambala City MLA Aseem Goel, Nangal Chaudhary MLA Abhe Singh Yadav, Thanesar MLA Subhash Sudha, Bawani Khera MLA Bishamber Singh Balmiki, and Sohna MLA Sanjay Singh were sworn in as ministers of state (independent charge).

Former chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar was also present at the swearing-in ceremony.

In a surprise move last week, the BJP replaced Manohar Lal Khattar with OBC leader Saini as Haryana's chief minister in a swift switch in the state, just weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Saini, who is the party's state unit president, was sworn in as chief minister a week ago along with five ministers hours after the resignation of Khattar.

The Saini government won the trust vote in a special session of the state assembly last Wednesday.

On the day of swearing-in of Saini, Khattar, when asked whether Vij’s name was there in the race for the post of a deputy chief minister, had said, 'Ministers had to take oath today and his (Vij's) name was on that (list). But he could not come.” Asked whether Vij was upset, he said, “Anil Vij is our senior colleague... He sometimes gets upset easily, but he becomes normal later.” In the past too, there have been many incidents when Vij got upset over something but later on things were normal, said Khattar.

“I spoke with him. He said he did not feel like coming (for the oath-taking event). We will speak to him. Nayab Saini ji will also speak to him,” he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, when asked about the cabinet expansion, former minister Vij said, "I have no information." He, however, asserted that he was not upset.

Vij has apparently been upset with the party not keeping him in the loop when they decided to make Saini the chief minister by removing Khattar. He said he came to know about it only in the BJP MLAs' meeting here last week in which Saini's name was announced.

'It was not in my knowledge that the chief minister of our state was being changed. This came as a bombshell to me that the chief minister was being changed,' Vij told reporters here earlier.

Six-time MLA Vij had walked out of the legislature party meeting where Saini was unanimously named the chief minister-designate. Vij, who held the home portfolio in the Manohar Lal Khattar government, was often at loggerheads with the chief minister. He was earlier said to be 'upset' over being 'ignored' by the BJP.

Replying to questions from reporters here, he said, 'I have said earlier too that I am a dedicated worker of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I am never upset with anything. Whatever I have to say, I say it clearly.' To a question about whether he wanted to be included in the Saini Cabinet, he replied, 'This is a hypothetical question'.

When asked about Khattar's earlier comment that Vij gets upset easily but later becomes okay too, the former Haryana minister said, "I don't know on what basis he said so."

With Chief Minister Saini taking out a roadshow which crossed Ambala Cantonment, the assembly segment represented by Vij, the former state home minister said, "Had Saini come to my residence, I would have offered him tea."

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Saini, while interacting with reporters after paying obeisance at Nada Sahib Gurdwara in Panchkula, said that Vij is "our respected leader and we have been regularly getting guidance from him".