Chautalas come together for mother’s last rites

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 12

Embroiled in a bitter family feud for the past almost one year, former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala’s sons Ajay and Abhay today were seen together performing the last rituals of their mother at Teja Khera village in Sirsa.

Through hardly any communication was noticed between INLD leader Abhay Chautala and his elder brother Ajay Chautala or between the former’s sons Karan and Arjun and the latter’s sons Dushyant and Digvijay, it was for the first time that the clan was seen together ever since the feud that began in September last year, culminating in the launch of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP).

Chautala’s wife Sneh Lata had passed away in a private hospital in Gurugram after a brief illness on Sunday.

Her younger son Abhay Chautala with whom she lived in Gurugram brought her body to the family’s Teja Khera farm house at noon today.

OP Chautala as well as Ajay, who are serving imprisonment in the JBT recruitment case in Delhi’s Tihar jail, were released on parole for attending the cremation.

While OP Chautala arrived in his Teja Khera farmhouse by road at 3 pm today, Ajay’s chopper landed at the nearby Chautala village minutes before the cremation and he arrived at the cremation ground just when the body of his mother was brought in about 5.30 pm.

When Ajay, being the eldest son of the deceased, lit the funeral pyre, his younger brother Abhay and sons of both brothers were also by his side.

Former Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal, Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma, State Congress president Ashok Tanwar were among those who attended the cremation.

Chautala’s younger brother and senior Congress leader Ranjit Singh was also sitting with him.

Sneh Lata had hit headlines in January this year when a video of her lying on a hospital bed saying that Ajay or his family should not touch her body if she died went viral.

She was peeved over the cancellation of parole to Chautala the day Dushyant Chautala’s JJP entered into an alliance with the AAP and it was alleged that the JJP leader was behind it since the AAP was in power in Delhi.

Earlier in the day, when Sneh Lata’s dead body was kept in the family’s farmhouse, Digvijay was spotted there, though there was no communication between him and members of Abhay’s family.

While Abhay was seen wiping his tears repeatedly, his son Arjun was crying inconsolably.

Hundreds of supporters and well wishers of the Chautala clan thronged Teja Khera village to pay homage to Sneh Lata.

“We only hope and pray that the departed soul brings the two brothers and their families together and the INLD emerges as a force it used to be in the past,” said an old INLD worker.

OP Chautala, son released on parole 

• Abhay Chautala, with whom Sneh Lata had lived in Gurugram, brought the body to the family’s Teja Khera farmhouse around noon
• OP Chautala as well as Ajay, who are serving imprisonment, were released on parole for attending the cremation