Linking Devi Lal to Partap Singh Kairon killing absurd, says patriarch’s family

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 21

Former Deputy PM Chaudhary Devi Lal’s family has rejected as “absurd” and “politically motivated” a new controversy linking the family patriarch in any manner to the assassination of former Punjab CM Partap Singh Kairon in a book authored by his son Gurinder Singh Kairon.

Their Rivalry

Book ‘Partap Singh Kairon: A visionary’, co-authored by the late Punjab CM’s younger son Gurinder, highlights the rivalry between Kairon and Devi Lal and also raises a question mark on the “closeness” between the latter and Daya Singh, one of the assassins of Kairon

The book ‘Partap Singh Kairon: A visionary’, authored by the late Punjab CM’s younger son jointly with Punjab University historian M Rajivlochan and his civil servant wife Meeta Rajivlochan, highlights the rivalry between Kairon and Devi Lal and also raises a question mark on the “closeness” between the latter and Daya Singh, one of the assassins of Kairon.

Kairon, who was Chief Minister of undivided Punjab for eight years (1956-64), was shot dead with three others on February 6, 1965 on Grand Trunk Road near Rai (Sonepat) while he was on his way from Delhi to Chandigarh.

While three of the four assassins Sucha Singh, Baldev Singh and Nahar Singh were awarded capital punishment in 1970 and hanged to death, the fourth assassin Daya Singh could only be arrested in 1972 and was awarded death sentence in 1978.

The death sentence was later converted to life term by the Supreme Court in April 1991 when Devi Lal was Deputy PM of the country.

“How could Chaudhary Devi Lal’s influence work on the Supreme Court of India?” asks Abhay Singh Chautala, Devi Lal’s grandson and an INLD MLA from Ellenabad.

“Our family never had any kind of relations with Daya Singh. After all, Daya Singh was not a political person. Chaudhary Devi Lal was known for keeping political differences aside from personal relations. Old-timers know it well that he and Kairon enjoyed good relations at a personal level,” maintains Abhay Singh, whose father Om Prakash Chautala, too, has served as CM of the state.

Terming this as a political conspiracy to malign Devi Lal’s family, Abhay Chautala adds that Gurinder Singh Kairon must have been fed by his (Chautala) family’s political opponents.

Ranjit Singh, a Cabinet Minister in Manohar Lal Khattar’s government, who is third of Devi Lal’s four sons, said, “I was studying in Government College, Chandigarh, in 1962, when my father, as a recognised Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, submitted a memorandum to the President against Kairon’s corruption. On his complaint, an SR Das Commission of Inquiry under a retired Supreme Court judge was constituted. Kairon had to resign after the commission submitted its report. But this was all political enmity. To suggest that my father had any personal enmity with Kairon is completely absurd,” says Ranjit Singh.

Ravi Chautala, son of Devi Lal’s second son Partap Singh, however said Daya Singh came in touch only when his grandfather was jailed during Emergency in Rohtak where Kairon’s killer was also lodged.

Daya Singh is from Manaksar village of Rajasthan and was a frequently visited Chaudhary Devi Lal because he served my grandfather inside the jail during Emergency.

“Daya Singh, now in his 80s, is still in touch with me,” Ravi Chautala adds.

Devi Lal, who was the CM of Haryana twice from 1977 to 1979 and then again from 1987 to 89, served as Deputy PM of the country from 1989 to 1991 under VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar. Devi Lal died on April 6, 2001.

The book records that Gurinder Singh, the younger son of Kairon, made a plea before the government for a fresh probe into the murder of his father.

He also stated in his plea that Daya Singh’s death sentence had been commuted at the intervention of Devi Lal and noted that the closeness of the two indicated an underlying conspiracy.

The government, however, refused to pay any attention to this plea for a CBI probe, the book further records.