M L Khattar elected Legislative Party leader, to be sworn-in as Haryana CM today

Chandigarh, Oct 26: Manohar Lal Khattar was on Saturday elected BJP's legislative party leader and he will oath as the Chief Minister of Haryana for the second time on Sunday.

The announcement was made by Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Prasad, along with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) general secretary Arun Singh, attended the legislative party meeting as central observers. Khattar's name was proposed by MLAs Anil Vij and Kanwar Pal and seconded by other BJP legislators.

After being elected as the legislative party leader, Khattar will go to meet Haryana Governor Satyadeo Narain Arya and stake claim to form the government in the state. The swearing-in ceremony of the Khattar-led BJP government will take place on Sunday.

"We will go to meet the Governor, and request him to invite us to form the government," said Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The BJP has 40 MLAs of its own and with the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), which has 10, having decided to support the saffron party, Khattar has the support of a total of 50 legislators.

Soon after the election results on Thursday showed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged as the single-largest party but stopped short of a simple majority, Khattar reached Delhi at night. He stayed overnight in the national capital to fine-tune the party's strategy and work out the details of the state government, which has to rely on non-BJP legislators.

The efforts culminated on Friday night, with the BJP announcing an alliance with the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), which won 10 of Haryana's 90 seats and was expected to play a key role in state politics.

On Friday, BJP president Amit Shah told a press conference in New Delhi that the chief minister will be from his party and the deputy chief minister from the regional party. JJP chief Dushyant Chautala was also present at the press conference.

Haryana got a fractured mandate, resulting in a hung Assembly, with the BJP winning 40 seats, Congress 31, JJP 10, independents 8 and INLD one.