Ambala, Sep 15 (IANS): 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.

He said the decision to nominate the Chief Minister is to be taken by the high command, “but if he’s made the Chief Minister, he would change the face of Haryana.”

In the 2019 Assembly polls, the outspoken BJP leader, who was the Cabinet minister in both terms of the party from 2014 to 2024, defeated his rival Independent candidate Chitra Sarwara by a margin of 20,165 votes.

He had defeated Congress leader Nirmal Singh by 15,462 votes in the 2014 polls.

At the time of 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 worked as a bank clerk and six times as their representative.

Party leaders admit privately that plain-speaking Vij is among a few senior leaders from the state who played a crucial role in strengthening the party at the grassroots.

In both his previous stints as a Cabinet minister, his claim for the Chief Minister’s post was “overlooked” by the party leadership. Again he got upset after Nayab Singh Saini had replaced Manohar Lal Khattar, who had been the chief minister of the state since 2014, in March.

Vij even went to the extent of saying that he was being sidelined and treated like a “stranger” within his party.

His assertion comes a day after Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh, a Congress turncoat who switched sides in the run-up to the parliamentary polls in 2014, projecting himself as a contender for the chief ministerial.

He also openly supported Rambilas Sharma, another party veteran and five-time MLA from Mahendragarh, Rambilas Sharma, after he was denied the assembly ticket.

Inderjit, the mass leader from the Ahirwal region in south Haryana, got a ticket for his daughter Arti Rao from Ateli this time.

The BJP, which is facing a challenge from the Congress, has already announced that the party would fight polls alone and under Saini’s leadership, indicating him as the chief ministerial face.

Voting for the 90 Assembly seats in Haryana will be held on October 5 and the ballot counting on October 8.