Six-time BJP legislator from his Ambala Cantonment in Haryana, Anil Vij, on Sunday said if the BJP is voted to power and on the basis of his seniority, he will stake claim to the post of Chief Minister.
Vij, who has been a legislator since 1990, said he is the senior-most MLA in the BJP, and he never asked for anything.
According to him, the high command will decide who should become the Chief Minister. "If he has become the Chief Minister, he would alter the face of Haryana."
In the 2019 Assembly polls, the vociferous BJP leader, who was a Cabinet minister both terms of the party 2014 to 2024, won over his Independent rival candidate Chitra Sarwara with a whopping 20,165 votes.
He had defeated Congress leader Nirmal Singh by 15,462 votes in the 2014 polls.
When filing nomination papers for the October 5 polls, he said the people of his constituency had chosen a person like him with no political background, who works as a bank clerk and six times as their representative.
At private meetings, party leaders concede that candid Vij is one of the very few senior leaders from the state, who had played a key role in building up the party at grassroot levels.
While the two instances of his earlier stints as a minister of the Cabinet rank showed his bid for the Chief Minister's position being "overlooked" by party leadership. This time, too, Nayab Singh Saini has superseded Manohar Lal Khattar, who has been the chief minister of the state since 2014, in March.
Vij even went to the extent of claiming that he was being sidelined and treated like a "stranger" within his own party.
This is his claim, a day after Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh, a Congress turncoat who switched sides in the run-up to the parliamentary polls in 2014 and was projecting himself as a contender for the chief ministerial post.
He also openly supported Rambilas Sharma, another party veteran and five-time MLA from Mahendragarh, Rambilas Sharma, after he was denied the assembly ticket.
This time, the mass leader of the Ahirwal region in south Haryana Inderjit got a ticket for his daughter Arti Rao from Ateli.
BJP, at present under siege from the Congress has already declared that the party will be contesting polls alone and under Saini's leadership which designates him as the chief ministerial face.
Elections for 90 Assembly seats in Haryana will be held on October 5 and counting of votes will take place on October 8.
Read also| EAM Jaishankar on India-China Talks Over Eastern Ladakh Dispute: 'We Made Some Progress'
Read also| We need to completely eradicate untouchability, says Mohan Bhagwat
