Chautala brand takes a hit with defeat for fourth-gen leaders

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 22

It is the Chautala brand which took a massive hit in Haryana, as all three great grandsons of former Deputy PM Devi Lal lost on Thursday. While two lost miserably, one was a poor runner-up.

Dushyant Chautala, son of Ajay Chautala, grandson of former CM Om Prakash Chautala and the founder of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), after breaking ranks from the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), lost to Brijendra Singh, son of Union Minister Birender Singh, by over three lakh votes.

His younger brother Digvijay stood third in Sonepat, bagging just close to 50,000 votes on the JJP ticket. Their cousin Arjun, son of Abhay Chautala, was fifth in Kurukshetra, bagging just 60,000 votes on the INLD ticket. The clan stood divided in 2018 when Abhay and Ajay — sons of OP Chautala — parted ways. Ajay is serving 10-year imprisonment along with his father.

Worst performance of INLD

The INLD, under Abhay, gave its worst performance in the Lok Sabha polls, as the party just got 1.90 per cent vote share. Even in Sirsa, despite having a sitting MP, the INLD was running fourth, behind the JJP, till the filing of the report.

The last poor show of the party was in the 2009 parliamentary elections, when it got 15.74 per cent vote share. With the Modi wave, Chautala in jail, caste polarisation between Jats and non-Jats and no prominent face, the party either came fourth or fifth in most of the constituencies.The party has been sliding since Chautala has been jailed.

In 2014, it had won two seats — Hisar and Sirsa — with the vote share of 24.43 per cent, even higher than that of the Congress (22.99). In the Assembly polls later, the vote percentage remained roughly the same, 24.11, and it won 19 seats. Abhay even became the Leader of Opposition.But then came the split in 2018, as Dushyant founded the JJP. With him, a substantial cadre of the INLD also joined the new front.

The 2019 debacle had a prelude too — the Jind byelection. The INLD stood fifth with just 3,454 votes, while its break-away faction JJP was the runner-up with over 37,631 votes. The first casualty was its alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which left it to ally with Raj Kumar Saini’s Loktantra Suraksha Party (LSP). As the cadre was shifting, Arjun Chautala was made to enter the fray from Kurukshetra. “Someone from the family was required to contest the polls to hold the cadre together,” said a party leader. “But it didn’t help and the party came fifth,” he said.

Both the INLD and the JJP were after their traditional Jat vote bank only. They were not fighting against the Congress or the BJP but against each other. The INLD was trying to keep its cadre from defection to the JJP and the latter kept projecting itself as an option and trying to get more votes than the INLD on each seat.

Dushyant said, “The JJP is the only alternative to the BJP, which we proved in the Jind byelections. I accept the defeat. We will continue to struggle for the people. This Modi wave is due to the weak leadership of the Congress.”

On the defeat, state president of the INLD Ashok Arora said, “We accept the defeat and analyse the results. We congratulate the winners.”

With the smashing defeat and upcoming Assembly elections, more are likely to leave the INLD before it completely sinks. The loyalists of the family may have an option in the JJP, which also performed poorly despite having an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party on same seats.