Gurugram: In less than six months, Dushyant Chautala has picked a fight with two different Directors General of Police (DGPs) of Haryana.
The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) chief and former deputy chief minister Monday held a press conference in Panchkula, where he pulled out his mobile phone and displayed call records and a WhatsApp message to journalists, alleging that DGP Ajay Singhal had not only ignored his repeated calls over three to four days, but had eventually blocked his number when he messaged seeking a convenient time to speak.
“I tried contacting the DGP several times. I called for three to four consecutive days, and when the calls went unanswered, I sent a message. Instead of responding, my number was blocked,” Chautala said.
Singhal didn’t respond to telephonic calls and WhatsApp messages from ThePrint for his reaction.
The immediate provocation, Chautala said, was the alleged conduct of Hisar Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) in-charge Pawan Kumar on 17 April, when he and his brother Digvijay Chautala were on their way to the office of the Hisar Superintendent of Police (SP) office to surrender in a case registered in connection with a protest at Guru Jambheshwar University (GJU) the previous day.
Chautala has alleged that Kumar stopped their convoy near the Old Sabzi Mandi bridge, drew a weapon, and attempted to run their vehicle over. The CIA in-charge has said it was the pilot car in the Chautala convoy that tried to ram into him, and that he only stopped the driver to counsel him.
Both sides have since filed complaints against each other at the Urban Estate police station in Hisar. A Special Investigation Team headed by Deputy SP Kamaljit is probing the matter.
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A pattern of confrontation
This is not the first time Chautala has turned a clash with Haryana Police into political capital. When O.P. Singh, who became DGP in November 2025, remarked that those who ride Bullet motorcycles or drive Thar vehicles have a “distorted mindset”, Chautala was quick to respond.
He posted a photograph on X (formerly Twitter) of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and former Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal riding a Bullet motorcycle, asking pointedly whether they too were “goons”.
He did not stop there. At a rally in Jind, he made a conspicuous entry in a Thar driven by a woman, a deliberate taunt aimed at the then-DGP.
Three days after the Jind rally, on 10 December, the Haryana Police quietly withdrew the security cover of Dushyant’s brother Digvijay Chautala, his brother-in-law Devender Kadian, his father-in-law and former Additional DGP Paramjeet Singh Ahlawat, Haryanvi singer Rahul Fazilpuria who had performed the ‘JJP Aayegi’ song at the rally, and young JJP leader Vinesh Gurjar.
The GJU sequence
The latest round of confrontation has its roots in events of 16 April, when JJP youth state president Digvijay Chautala led supporters in a demonstration outside the Vice Chancellor’s office at GJU in Hisar.
Protesters are alleged to have attempted to break open the gate of the VC’s office. Hisar Police registered a case against Digvijay and eight others, and arrested six JJP leaders, though all were subsequently granted bail.
It was while going to surrender in this case the next day that the confrontation with the Crime Investigation Agency in-charge took place. JJP district spokesperson Ravi Ahuja on Tuesday escalated the war of words further by posting a video purportedly showing the CIA in-charge with a gun, alleging a planned encounter.
The party claims to have eight more such clips from Hisar Police, and has indicated it intends to keep the controversy alive until a Hisar Mahapanchayat scheduled for 27 April.
Political sympathy, carefully cultivated
Political observers in the state are not reading these developments in isolation. According to Jyoti Mishra, an assistant professor of Political Science at Amity University in Mohali, Chautala, whose party was nearly wiped out in the 2024 Assembly elections, has found a reliable formula in his confrontations with the police; each clash generates sympathy and each sympathy generates a crowd, particularly of youths.
Meanwhile, the Indian National Lok Dal patron Prof. Sampat Singh, offered a more measured view. Speaking to ThePrint Wednesday, he said the vice chancellors (VCs) appointed across Haryana’s 23 universities were “incompetent” and that some form of protest against them was inevitable. But he cautioned that political parties should not use students as instruments, and that senior politicians should not be getting into altercations with police personnel.
“If the vice-chancellor at GJU had handled things properly, none of this would have happened. Political people too did not handle it well. They should have met the VC first, and only resorted to a dharna if he failed to act, not used students as a shield,” he said.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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