Gurugram: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is looking to claim the political legacy of the three ‘Lals’ of Haryana—former chief ministers Devi Lal, Bhajan Lal, and Bansi Lal—in the upcoming Assembly election, with many of their descendants landing on the ruling party’s side through cooption, merger or alignment.
Much of this happened under the stewardship of a fourth ‘Lal’, former CM Manohar Lal Khattar, who laid the ground for it, starting with Devi Lal’s grandson, Aditya, joining the BJP in 2016.
The three Lals dominated Haryana’s politics for more than four decades after the state was created in 1966. Either one of them or their family members sat in the chief minister’s chair over these years, barring a few gaps.
As the BJP looks to win Haryana for a third time, it is hoping that leaders from the Lal families could play an important role in the upcoming assembly elections, where the ruling party faces a tough battle largely because of the anti-incumbency factor.
Over the years, the BJP’s alignment with the next generation of Lals has been instrumental in its efforts to expand influence and consolidate power in Haryana. Although they don’t have the charisma of the original Lals, the descendants still have some clout in their strongholds.
In the past few months, several key members from Haryana’s three powerful political clans—Ranjit Singh Chautala from Devi Lal’s family; former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi; and Kiran Choudhry and Shruti Choudhry from Bansi Lal’s clan—have left their parties and joined the BJP.
At a Jan Ashirwad rally on the 97th birth anniversary of Bansi Lal at Tosham on Monday, Chief Minister Nayab Saini paid rich tributes to the late leader, who is considered the architect of modern Haryana.
Bansi Lal’s daughter-in-law and BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Kiran Choudhry and his granddaughter Shruti were with Saini during the rally.
“I first pay tribute to the Vikas Purush, Chaudhary Bansi Lal ji, on his birth anniversary from the land of Tosham. This sacred land is his birthplace, where he showed a new direction of development to the state of Haryana. Considering the circumstances that had once engulfed the Congress party, the late Chaudhary Bansi Lal ji had to take the step of leaving the Congress as well,” he posted on ‘X‘ after the rally.
On the same day, Saini participated in the 574th birth anniversary of Guru Jambheshwar Maharaj, the Guru who is worshipped by Bhajan Lal’s Bishnoi community, at Hisar.
With Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi on his one side and nephew Dura Ram, the BJP MLA from Fatehabad, on the other side, Saini described Bhajan Lal as a leader who worked tirelessly for the development of Haryana.
When his turn came, Kuldeep Bishnoi welcomed Saini at the Bishnoi temple on behalf of the entire community. He remarked that after Chaudhary Bhajan Lal, the only leader who is dedicated to the public 24 hours a day is Nayab Saini. Bishnoi also mentioned that the only person he has seen working until midnight, just like his father, is Saini.
Justifying his party’s claim to the legacy of Lals, BJP state spokesperson Sanjay Sharma said that the party has contested elections with the three Lals in the past and that there was nothing unusual to laying claim to their legacy.
“Devi Lal and BJP contested several elections together and even formed governments. Bansi Lal and BJP contested 1996 elections together and formed a coalition government and Kuldeep Bishnoi’s Haryana Janhit Congress and BJP contested 2014 Lok Sabha election together with the former contesting Sirsa and Hisar while the BJP fielded its candidates from rest of the 8 seats,” Sharma told ThePrint.
Jyoti Mishra, a researcher at the New Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), said the influence of the Lals cannot be overlooked in Haryana’s political history and their descendants have carried forward their political legacies.
Even when not in power, these political clans have often allied with the ruling dispensation and played significant roles in governance.
“This strategic realignment appears mutually beneficial. These leaders gain affiliation with the ruling party, which has maintained power for two consecutive terms while the BJP taps into the traditional vote bank associated with these influential families,” Mishra told ThePrint.
The influence of the next generation will only be useful to the BJP in some pockets.
Kuldeep Bishnoi, for instance, has a hold over the Bishnoi community, whose influence extends to around 11 assembly constituencies. They are Adampur, Uklana, Nalwa, Hisar, Tohana, Sirsa, Dabwali, Ellenabad, Fatehabad, Ratia, and Loharu.
With former deputy prime minister Devi Lal’s son Ranjit Singh, the ruling party can hope to influence voters from the farming community which is not happy with the BJP because of the handling of the farmers’ agitation, wrestlers’ protests, and the Agniveer scheme for recruitment in the armed forces.
Bansi Lal’s daughter-in-law Kiran Choudhry has never lost an election since she entered politics in Haryana in 2005, and her father-in-law’s traditional assembly seat Tosham in Bhiwani district remains a pocket borough.
Betting on the Lals
The BJP needs all the help it can get in Haryana. The assembly elections will be tough for the ruling party not only because of the anti-incumbency factor but also because PM Modi’s brand value is unlikely to be as strong a factor as it was in the parliamentary polls.
The party might be pinning its hopes on the support of leaders from Haryana’s old political families, but the Lok Sabha election results suggest their political clout is on the wane.
In the parliamentary elections in May, the BJP won only five out of 10 seats in Haryana with the rest going to the Congress. It won all 10 in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
And, its bet on the Lals hasn’t always paid off. The BJP fielded Ranjit Singh from Hisar in the Lok Sabha elections and lost to the Congress by 63,000 votes.
Earlier, when the BJP won just 40 seats in the 90-member assembly in 2019, it went into a post-poll alliance with Devi Lal’s great-grandson Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). The JJP won 10 assembly seats in the Vidhan Sabha.
The alliance ended in March, though four JJP MLAs are still supporting the BJP.
BJP & the Lals
Still, the BJP is pinning its hopes on the Lal families because of their past history. Before 2014, the BJP was considered a party with influence over a few pockets, particularly towns and cities, and often played junior partner in the governments run by the Lals.
The BJP was the junior partner in governments headed by Devi Lal in 1977 and 1987, and also contested elections with him in 1982, 1987 and 2000. From 1996 to 1999, it was part of Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party (HVP)-BJP government.
Before the 2014 general elections, the BJP had an alliance with Kuldeep Bishnoi’s Haryana Janhit Congress but the party broke this alliance after Modi stormed to power with a strong mandate.
The BJP only fought the election alone in Haryana after Modi became Prime Minister and formed a government for the first time by winning 47 seats in 2014.
However, it didn’t do well in the constituencies considered pocket-boroughs of the three Lals. That’s when the BJP started bringing the descendants of the Lals into its fold and increased its influence in the areas they represented.
Mishra said the BJP has strategically provided instant benefits or rewards to these descendants. After Kuldeep Bishnoi joined the BJP in August 2022, his son Bhavya was given a ticket from the party in November to contest the by-election, which he won.
Similarly, Ranjit Singh joined the BJP in March and was fielded for the Hisar constituency in the Lok Sabha election. He, however, lost to his Congress rival. Kiran Choudhry was fielded for the Rajya Sabha by the BJP immediately after her exit from the Congress.
BJP & Devi Lal
The BJP’s performance in territories controlled by the powerful Lal clans has varied. It lost all five seats in Devi Lal’s Sirsa district to its alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in 2014.
And it ended as runner-up in the Ellenabad assembly seat even though it poached Pawan Beniwal from Devi Lal’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD). Beniwal, a close confidant of INLD leader Abhay Chautala, left him to join the BJP just before the assembly polls.
In 2016, Devi Lal’s grandson Aditya joined the BJP under the then chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, and his entry provided it a foothold in the family’s citadel, particularly in Sirsa district.
A split in the INLD in 2018 helped the BJP gain ground in areas under the Devi Lal family’s influence as some INLD legislators joined the ruling party. The BJP also took the support of Devi Lal’s son Ranjit Singh, an independent MLA from Rania in Sirsa, after the 2019 assembly elections, and made him a Cabinet minister.
BJP & Bhajan Lal
Ahead of the 2014 general elections, the BJP allied with Kuldeep Bishnoi’s Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) as a junior partner for the assembly elections and senior partner for the Lok Sabha polls.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the HJC contested from Hisar and Sirsa but lost both to the INLD.
The BJP broke its alliance with the HJC after this and both parties went solo in the assembly polls.
Kuldeep Bishnoi and his wife Renuka won the elections from Adampur and Hansi. In 2016, Bishnoi merged his HJC into the Congress only to quit again in 2022 and join the BJP.
Kuldeep Bishnoi’s son Bhavya won the Adampur assembly seat vacated by his father in a by-election in 2022. In the 2024 Parliamentary polls, Bishnoi was denied a party ticket from Hisar.
BJP & Bansi Lal
The BJP also had a brief alliance with Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) before the 1996 assembly elections.
With the two parties getting 33 and 11 seats respectively, Bansi Lal formed the government with the help of 10 Independents. However, the BJP withdrew support from the government in June 1999 leading to its collapse.
During his lifetime, Bansi Lal was very critical of the BJP. Nearly a quarter of a century later, his daughter-in-law Kiran Choudhry has now quit the Congress to join the BJP.
Now, as Haryana gears up for the assembly election in October, the question many are asking is: Will the Lal families help the BJP win a third term in Haryana?
“Not necessarily,” said Devesh Kumar, another researcher at CSDS, told ThePrint. “First of all, the BJP faces a very strong anti-incumbency for 10 years in power in Haryana. Secondly, in the case of the descendants of all the three Lals, if the BJP has one of the descendants, there are others within their family opposed to the BJP.”
In the case of Devi Lal’s descendants, his grandsons Abhay Chautala’s INLD and Ajay Chautala’s JJP are opposing the BJP.
Similarly, the BJP has Kuldeep Bishnoi, but Bishnoi’s elder brother Chander Mohan, a former deputy CM, is with the Congress.
And Bansi Lal’s daughter-in-law Kiran Choudhry (late Surender Singh’s wife), and her daughter Shruti Choudhry are with the BJP, but Surender Singh’s elder brother Ranbir Mahendra and his son Anirudh Choudhary are with the Congress.
With the election less than a month away, the suspense will be over soon.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)