Newsmaker | Who is new Haryana BJP president Mohan Lal Badoli?

The new state BJP president was born to poet Kali Ram Kaushik in 1963 in the village of Badoli in Sonipat district’s Rai Tehsil. According to his recent poll affidavit, his primary occupations are agriculture and business — he owns a fuel station in Sonipat — with assets of more than Rs 16.3 crore. Badoli used to run a shop in a cloth market near Sonipat’s Bahalgarh Chowk before getting into active politics. In 1989, he joined the RSS and subsequently moved to the BJP. By 1995, he held the position of Mandal Adhyaksh of Murthal. When the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) was in power — it formed the government in the 2000 Assembly polls — Badoli became the first BJP leader to win a Zila Parishad election from Murthal.

In 2019, he took on the Congress in its stronghold of Rai and defeated the party’s candidate Jai Tirath. This ended the Congress’s winning streak in Rai: while Ramesh Chander won in 2005, Tirath bagged the constituency in 2009 and 2014.

The BJP appointed Badoli its Sonipat district president in 2020 and the following year, he was appointed party general secretary and inducted into the state BJP’s core team. This year, he was again appointed party general secretary. In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, Badoli was brought into the state BJP’s election committee.

In the recent Lok Sabha election, he replaced sitting MP Ramesh Chander Kaushik from Sonipat but lost to Satpal Brahmchari by 21,816 votes. While the BJP won the seat in 1999 and 2004, it lost it to the Congress in 2009. The BJP won the constituency in 2014 and 2019. This time, Brahmchari had a 48.82% vote share while Badoli got 46.88% of the votes.