BJP upsurge, family feud sees Devi Lal’s political legacy fading

Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, June 26

The political legacy built by former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal through years of struggle, which was already on the downslide due to the feud in Chautala clan, is now fast fading  after the BJP upsurge in the Lok Sabha poll.

With the lone Rajya Sabha member of the INLD Ram Kumar Kashyap joining the BJP today, a day after its MLAs from Nuh and Julana Zakir Hussain and Parminder Singh Dhull joined the saffron party in the presence of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, the INLD, which emerged as the main opposition party in the 2014 Assembly poll, is heading for disintegration even as the next Assembly poll are nearing.

The party which had two Lok Sabha MPs, one Rajya Sabha MP and 19 MLAs in 2014, is now left with merely seven MLAs, and some of them too are said to be in contact with the BJP.

Notably, the condition of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), the breakaway political outfit which was floated by former Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala after he fell apart with his uncle and former Leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala, is no better as those quitting the INLD are no more considering the JJP as an option. Some of its leaders have also either switched over to the BJP or are in touch with it.

The JJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Bhiwani-Mahendragrah is already in touch with the BJP and had visited the party’s office in Rohtak to explore the possibility of her entry into the saffron party while the JJP’s Rohtak district president Dharampal Makrauli has already joined the BJP.

Dushyant Chautala, downplaying the developments, said the party had already removed Makrauli from his post after it became known that he was in touch with Khattar. Abhay Chautala could not be contacted for his comments.

Chaudhary Devi Lal, who started his political struggle before Independence, first became Chief Minister of Haryana on June 21, 1977, and remained on the post till June 28, 1979, when Bhajan Lal succeeded him through defection.

He returned back to power on July 17, 1987, and retained the post till December 2, 1989, when he resigned after his election as MP and elevation to the post of Deputy Prime Minister.

Devi Lal, in fact, was elected Prime Minister in the tug of war between VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar, but he stepped down in favour of Singh. After Devi Lal, his elder son Om Prakash Chautala became CM and despite the Meham fiasco, Chautala again came to power in 1999 and remained at this post till 2005.

The party has not been able to come to power since 2005. Its performance in 2014 when it won two Lok Sabha seats and 19 Vidhan Sabha seats has been the best since 2000.

Even the sentencing of Chautala and his elder son Ajay Singh Chautala to 10 years of imprisonment in the JBT recruitment scam could not dampen the spirits of INLD workers and the party performed better than the Congress in 2014.

However, a feud in the family over the war of succession between Abhay Chautala and Dushyant Chautala, which started with a ruckus by supporters of the latter, has inflicted a telling blow on Devi Lal’s political legacy.

Both the INLD as well as the JJP suffered humiliating defeats in the Lok Sabha poll with only Dushyant Chautala finishing runner-up at Hisar.

The upsurge of the BJP after its victory first in the mayoral poll and Jind bypoll and the more recent clean sweep by it in the Lok Sabha poll has proved the proverbial last straw for followers of the Chautala clan, as many of them are now vying with each other to join the saffron brigade.

On the wane 

• With the lone Rajya Sabha member of the INLD Ram Kumar Kashyap joining the BJP on Wednesday, a day after its MLAs from Nuh and Julana Zakir Hussain and Parminder Singh Dhull joined the saffron party, the INLD is heading for disintegration even as the next Assembly poll are nearing.
• The party which had two Lok Sabha MPs, one Rajya Sabha MP and 19 MLAs in 2014, is now left with merely seven MLAs, and some of them too are said to be in contact with the BJP.