Abhay reminds people of uncle Ranjeet’s revolt against party

HISAR: Making his stand clear on the ongoing family saga following the suspension of Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala, the INLD MLA from Ellanabad, Abhay Singh Chautala, on Monday stated that whoever tries to weaken the party would have fate akin to Ranjeet Singh Chautala who has not been able to win the Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha elections in the last 36 years.

Deepender Deswal

Tribune News Service

Hisar, October 29

Making his stand clear on the ongoing family saga following the suspension of Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala, the INLD MLA from Ellanabad, Abhay Singh Chautala, on Monday stated that whoever tries to weaken the party would have fate akin to Ranjeet Singh Chautala who has not been able to win the Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha elections in the last 36 years.

Ranjeet Singh is the youngest son of late Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal who got elected from the Rodi Assembly segment in Sirsa district in 1987 as the Lok Dal candidate. He later switched sides to join the Congress party while making a political revolt against his own family after his elder brother Om Prakash Chautala took command of the party. Singh is still in the Congress and has contested from the Lok Sabha and the Assembly seats on the Congress ticket without success.

However, Abhay’s attempt to draw a parallel between his uncle Ranjeet Singh Chautala and the young leader, his nephew Dushaynt Chautala, who was being projected as the chief ministerial candidate by his supporters, is being seen as a flashpoint in the ongoing tussle in the family.

Abhay’s statement a day after Dushyant’s mother Naina Chautala urged her supporters to kept the pitch higher in favour of his son, is being seen as a crucial development in the ongoing war of words between the two factions in the family.

“I want to make it clear that whoever has tried to project himself as the future CM after being motivated by slogans had to go into political oblivion. You must remember that Ranjeet Singh had tried to weaken the party and to break it. It’s 36 years now and he has not been able to reach the Lok Sabha or the Assembly,” Abhay said.

He claimed that the INLD and the BSP would repeat the history of 1987 when erstwhile Lok Dal had a big majority in the state Assembly.

Abhay’s speech a day after his jailed brother Ajay Chautala’s wife Naina’s strong defence of her son Dusyant in yesterday’s Karnal function indicated that the fault lines between the two factions in the family have got wider.

Naina had stated that Dushyant has not indulged in any indiscipline for which the party has served a show-cause notice to her. She also urged the party workers to continue to raise slogans in favour of Dushyant, adding that Ajay Chautala would come out of jail on Diwali and would set all things right in the party.