Manohar Lal Khattar

Manohar Lal Khattar (born 5 May 1954) is an Indian politician who is serving as the 33rd Minister of Power, 40th Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs since 2024. He also served 10th Chief Minister of Haryana from 26 October 2014 till his resignation on 12 March 2024. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a former RSS pracharak. He represented the Karnal constituency in the Haryana Legislative Assembly since 2014 till 2024. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, lower house of the Parliament of India from Karnal, Haryana in the 2024 Indian general election. As of June 2024, he serves as the Minister of Power and Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs in the Third Modi Ministry.

Personal life
Khattar was born on 5 May 1954 in Nindana village of Meham tehsil in the Rohtak district of East Punjab, India into a Punjabi Hindu family. His father, Harbans Lal Khattar, had migrated to the village from the Jhang district of West Punjab following the Partition of India in 1947. His family initially settled in the Banyani village of Rohtak district and took up farming.

Khattar completed his matriculation (final year of high school) from Pandit Neki Ram Sharma Government College, Rohtak. He then moved to Delhi, and ran a shop near Sadar Bazar while completing his bachelor's degree from University of Delhi.

Political career
Khattar joined Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1977 and became a full-time pracharak three years later. As a pracharak, he is a lifelong bachelor. He worked as a full-time pracharak for 14 years before moving to BJP, in 1994.

During 2000–2014, Khattar was Organizational General Secretary of the BJP in Haryana. during his tenure the state unit was also started a publication of Bhajpa Ki Baat magazine in October 2000. He was the Chairman of BJP's Haryana Election Campaign Committee for 2014 Lok Sabha Elections. Subsequently, he became a member of BJP's National Executive Committee.

In 2014, Khattar was nominated as BJP's candidate from Karnal constituency for the Haryana Legislative Assembly election, 2014. The party's workers and supporters in Karnal launched a signature campaign, asking the party leadership to field a local candidate instead of him. His opponent, the Indian National Congress candidate and Deepender Singh Hooda, accused Khattar of being an "outsider" not native to Karnal. But Modi wave helped Mr. Khattar win elections by heavy margin.

In the elections, the BJP gained a majority in Haryana for the first time, and Khattar won his maiden election by a margin of 63,736 votes. During a party meeting, his name was proposed for the Chief Minister of Haryana post by Haryana BJP President Ram Bilas Sharma, seconded by other strong Chief Minister of Haryana claimant Rao Inderjeet Singh and supported by many MLAs. He became the BJP's first Chief Minister of Haryana after his swearing-in ceremony on 26 October 2014.

On 27 October 2019, Khattar was sworn in as the chief minister for the second time, after making an alliance with Dushyant Chautala's Jannayak Janta Party post 2019 Haryana Legislative Assembly election.

Khattar submitted his resignation to Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya on 12 March 2024 after the development came amid speculation of cracks emerging in the state's ruling BJP and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) coalition over seat sharing ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and on 13 March he tendered his resignation from the Haryana Legislative Assembly.

In March 2024, he was announced as the BJP candidate for the Karnal constituency in the 2024 Indian general election. Khattar subsequently won from the seat.

Police reforms
Khattar announced that Haryana will have an all-woman police station in each district and around 500 woman constables will be recruited. He also started a 24×7 portal called Harsamay through which anybody can file a complaint online.

He has also suggested that Yoga to be a part of police constables' training to help keep the police personnel mentally and physically fit. According to media reports, Khattar has said that Police recruitments would be made on Transparent Recruitment Policy (TRP) and 3,060 new houses would be constructed for police personnel at a cost of Rs 550 crore in next three years.

E-governance
Manohar Lal Khattar has introduced e-services through Common Service Centres including biometric attendance system in all the government offices through which attendance of all officers will be available online and monitored.

Indian reunification
In July 2022, Manohar Lal Khattar championed the cause of Indian reunification, declaring opposition to the partition of India. Khattar likened the present divisions in the Indian subcontinent to those of East and West Germany, which were dissolved with German reunification in the 1990s.

Women's empowerment
Manohar Lal Khattar's Government has been in news for taking steps to implement Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana scheme that was flagged off by India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The child gender ratio has been improved in Haryana since he assumed power. It is now 889 girls per 1,000 boys. "Efforts are being made to further take it (child gender ratio) to above 900," Khattar has said in a public statement.

Construction of memorial
Manohar Lal Khattar has publicly declared that his government will build a memorial to mark the sacrifice of Garud Commando Gursewak Singh, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Pathankot.

Controversies
Manohar Lal Khattar is criticised for his remarks on rape and women issues. During his election campaign for 2014 polls in India, he said: "If they (women) want freedom, why don't they just roam around naked? Freedom has to be limited." Likewise, on 16 November 2018, he has stated, "The biggest concern is that in 80-90% of rapes and eve-teasing cases, the accused and the victim know each other. In many cases, they know each other for a long time, and on one day, when there is an argument,... an FIR is lodged, saying that this person has raped me." This evoked strong condemnation from the opposition. On 3 April 2023, he again stirred a controversy by making a remark that a "[high court] judge needed to be "fixed"". The opposition believes this is interference with the judiciary and have demanded an apology and that a contempt of court notice be issued against him.