Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday announced the candidature of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini for the Karnal Assembly by-election. Polling for Karnal assembly seat, which fell vacant following the resignation of former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, will be held on May 25.

Khattar resigned as an MLA from the Karnal assembly seat, which he won twice in 2014 and 2019 on March 13 after he was replaced by OBC leader Nayab Singh Saini as the Chief Minister.

A few weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha election, the BJP replaced Khattar with Saini as Haryana CM. Saini, who is the party's state unit president, was sworn in as chief minister along with five ministers hours after the resignation of Khattar. The Saini led -government won the trust vote in a special session of the state Assembly on March 13.

Sources in the Congress Party said that to put up a strong front against Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, the party has started a hunt for the winning candidate for the Karnal assembly constituencies. The Congress party is also open to field consensus candidates, with support of all the opposition parties, on the seat, if everything goes as per the plan, they added.

Khattar was recently named as the BJP candidate from the Karnal Lok Sabha constituency. He had won the Karnal assembly seat in 2014 after defeating an Independent candidate by a margin of 63,773 votes. In 2019, Khattar retained the seat by trouncing the Congress nominee. After Khattar was chosen for the post of chief minister in 2014, Karnal received the tag of ‘CM city’.