The first BJP Cabinet in Haryana led by newly sworn-in Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has given the lion's share of membership to the Ahirwal region and Karnal district while the number of ministers from the Jat community, which has dominated the politics of the state, stands at two.
The Ahirwal region and Karnal district have generally been ignored in the political history of the state but Khattar, Punjabi by origin and with an RSS background, has made sure that, himself included, there are five members from these areas in the new, 10-member ministry.
Khattar, who won the Assembly polls from Karnal, has given a ministerial berth to Karandev Singh Kamboj, a Backward Class leader and a first-time MLA from the Indri seat in Karnal district.
As for Ahirwal in southern Haryana, there are three leaders from the region in the Khattar ministry -- Ram Bilas Sharma (Mahendargarh), Narbir Singh (Badshahpur) and Vikram Thekedar (Kosli).
The Jat leaders in the ministry are Capt. Abhimanyu and Om Prakash Dhankar, while representing the SC category is Krishan Kumar Bedi, a first-time MLA from Shahabad.
The ministry which was sworn in today gives representation to nine of the 21 districts of Haryana -- Karnal, Hissar, Jhajjar, Ambala, Gurgaon, Sonipat, Rewari, Mahendargarh and Kurukshetra.
Among the ones left out are the Jat-dominated districts of Jind and Rohtak as also Sirsa, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Panchkula and Yamunanagar.
Khattar is expected to expand his ministry soon as he can have a maximum of 14 ministers - 15 per cent of the 90 member state assembly.
Apart from the chief minister, seven other ministers are first-time members of the state Cabinet. Only two -- Ram Bilas Sharma and Rao Narbir Singh -- have been ministers in the past.
Khattar is also a first-time MLA, as are Capt. Abhimanyu, Om Parkash Dhankar, Vikram Thekedar, Krishan Kumar Bedi and Karan Dev Kamboj.
Of the 10, Dhankar had lost the recent Lok Sabha elections from Rohtak to Congress's Deepender Hooda, the son of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.
The 60-year-old chief minister has included a number of young faces in his Cabinet, youngest of whom is Kavita Jain -- the only woman MLA to take oath today and the youngest minister at 37 years.
