Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday resigned from his post amid speculation of a split between the BJP and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in the state. The development came ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Khattar and his cabinet ministers went to Raj Bhavan and submitted their resignation letters to Governor Bandaru Dattatreya.
The BJP MLAs in Haryana will meet to finalise a new Chief Minister. Party observers, including Arjun Munda, Biplab Deb and Tarun Chugh, arrived in Chandigarh and will participate in the meeting.
The saffron party is likely to form a new government with six Independent legislators and one from the Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP), sources told India Today TV.
In the 90-member Haryana assembly, the BJP has 41 MLAs, Congress 30 and JJP 10. Seven are Independents, while there is one MLA each from the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the HLP.
Ties between the BJP and the JJP worsened following differences over seat-sharing for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The BJP had won all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana in 2019.
The JJP was keen to contest two seats but the BJP was not in favour of giving seats to the Chautala-led party as it wants to contest all 10 Lok Sabha seats, sources said.
The BJP and the JJP formed a post-poll alliance after the saffron party did not get a majority in the 2019 Haryana assembly polls. Assembly election is slated to be held in the state later this year.
Meanwhile, Chautala is likely to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Tuesday over the future of the BJP-JJP alliance, according to sources.
