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Manohar Lal Khattar, the first Chief Minister of Haryana from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is leading from the Karnal constituency in the Lok Sabha election, results of which are being announced on Tuesday.
As the initial results began to trickle in, Khattar’s primary challenger for the seat was Divyanshu Budhiraja, chief of the Haryana Youth Congress.
The 70-year-old is running for parliamentary elections for the first time after serving as Chief Minister from October 26, 2014, until his resignation on March 12, 2024.
When the party nominated Khattar for the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, he resigned as MLA from the Karnal Assembly constituency, making way for his successor and the party’s state president, Nayab Saini.
Khattar joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1977 and became a full-time pracharak (worker) in 1980.
He served in this role for fourteen years before moving to the BJP in 1994.
In 2014, he made his electoral debut and was elected to the Haryana Legislative Assembly from Karnal constituency.
He also served as the chairman of the BJP's Haryana Election Campaign Committee for the 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.
During a public gathering in Gurugram on March 11, Prime Minister Modi spoke about his friendship with Khattar.
He mentioned that they used to take motorcycle rides in Haryana and worked together for the RSS.
In the 2019 elections, Karnal Lok Sabha seat was won by BJP’s Sanjay Bhatia, who defeated his opponent, a Congress party candidate Kuldip Sharma by a whopping vote margin of 50.44%.
Karnal Lok Sabha constituency comprises nine assembly segments including Gharaunda, Panipat City, Karnal, Panipat Rural, Indri, Assandh, Israna, Nilokheri, and Samalkha.
Source: Haryana Elections Results 2024: BJP's Manohar Lal Khattar leads from Karnal