Manohar Lal Khattar, the Haryana Chief Minister, and his cabinet ministers, including Dushyant Chautala, the Deputy Chief Minister, resigned on Tuesday.
A Haryana government spokesperson said Khattar, and his cabinet colleagues, have handed over the resignation letter along with his cabinet to the Haryana governor Bandaru Dattatreya.
The resignations come amid a speculated split in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) coalition in Haryana over seat-sharing agreements for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Khattar is likely to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Karnal seat, sources said.
The BJP had rushed two leaders – Union Minister Arjun Munda and party General Secretary Tarun Chugh – to Chandigarh as central observers to Chandigarh to resolve the crisis.
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A meeting of the BJP legislature party will be held soon to decide a new leader. Sources said either BJP’s state president Nayab Singh Saini will replace Khattar or he might take oath again with a different cabinet in the evening.
Sources said that the ties between the BJP and Dushyant Chautala-led JJP had worsened over failure to arrive at a seat-sharing formula in the state ahead of Lok Sabha polls. The BJP had won all 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2019 elections.
The BJP and JJP came together after the 2019 assembly polls as the BJP fell short of majority – 46 seats in the 90-member Haryana Assembly.
The BJP has 41 MLAs and enjoys the support of five independent MLAs. The JJP has 10 MLAs while the Congress has 30 MLAs in the house.
The BJP says it has the required numbers – 41 MLAs plus five independents, that can help it cross the halfway mark in the Haryana Assembly.
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(More details awaited)
