Devi Lal’s family on top of Haryana politics again, with fourth-gen dynast Dushyant Chautala
Politics

Devi Lal’s family on top of Haryana politics again, with fourth-gen dynast Dushyant Chautala

From Devi Lal to now Dushyant, the Chautala family has brought the Jats to the political centre of Haryana.

   
Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) with founder Dushyant Chautala (centre)

JJP founder Dushyant Chautala (centre) | Twitter

Chandigarh: After being out of power in Haryana for over 15 years, Devi Lal’s clan is back on the top. His great-grandson Dushyant Chautala is all set to be the deputy CM in the BJP-JJP (Jannayak Janata Party) coalition government.

From Devi Lal, who was a major player in national politics and a former deputy PM, to now Dushyant, the Chautala family is credited with bringing Jats to the political centre in Haryana.

Devi Lal

The family derives its name from Chautala village in Sirsa district where Devi Lal’s father Lekh Ram Sihag, a wealthy landlord, had shifted to from their ancestral village of Teja Khera in Haryana.

Devi Lal’s elder brother, Sahib Ram Sihag, was the first to join politics as a Congressman and was twice elected as the Sirsa MLA (1938 and 1947). Devi Lal followed his brother’s footsteps and quit studies to join the freedom struggle. Both were arrested during the Quit India movement.

Emerging as a powerful farmer leader, Devi Lal was first elected as an MLA in 1952 and played an active role in the formation of the Haryana state in 1966. He left the Congress in 1971 and contested as an Independent candidate in 1972, losing to Bansi Lal from Tosham. In 1975, when former prime minister Indira Gandhi declared Emergency, Devi Lal was jailed for over a year. In 1977, he contested and won on a Janata Party ticket from Bhattu Kalan seat and became the chief minister of Haryana. He held the chair until 1979.

Devi Lal won the Sonepat parliamentary seat in 1980 as a Janata Party candidate, but soon returned to state politics and formed the Lok Dal. In 1982, the Lok Dal allied with the BJP, but despite heading the single-largest party (after assembly polls), he was denied the chief minister’s post. The Congress’ Bhajan Lal went on to become the chief minister.

In 1984, Devi Lal lost the Sonepat seat. However in 1987, the BJP-Lok Dal alliance registered a record win, bagging 85 seats in the 90-member assembly and Devi Lal became the chief minister of Haryana for the second time.

In the 1989 parliamentary elections, he contested and won from both Sikar in Rajasthan, and Rohtak in Haryana as a Janata Dal candidate. He then gave up his chief ministerial post to become the deputy prime minister in the V.P. Singh government. He died in 2001 at the age of 85.


Also read: How BJP’s alliance partner JJP hurt it the most in Haryana


Second generation — Om Prakash Chautala

Devi Lal had four sons — Om Prakash Chautala, Partap Singh, Ranjit Singh and Jagdish Chander. All joined politics, except Chander, who died young.

Devi Lal’s political legacy, however, became a bone of contention between Chautala and Ranjit Singh. And this internecine battle between the brothers dominated Haryana politics all through Devi Lal’s political career.

When Devi Lal became the CM for the second time, Singh, who was elected as an MLA, joined his cabinet. 

Chautala was then a Rajya Sabha member. In 1989, when Devi Lal chose to shift to the Centre and take up the deputy prime minister’s post, a feud erupted between the brothers over staking claim to the chief minister’s post.

 

Devi Lal preferred Chautala to Singh whom he considered more “aggressive and a go-getter”. This despite the fact that Devi Lal had disowned Chautala in 1978 after he was detained by customs for bringing in too many wrist watches.

Chautala, however, failed to become an MLA within six months of being sworn-in as the CM, but with the help of Devi Lal, held on to the CM chair for a few months, on and off, until his government was dissolved in 1991. Chautala then changed the name of the Lok Dal to the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and went on to become the chief minister again in 1999. He took over the reins of the party after Devi Lal’s death in 2001. 

File image of Om Prakash Chautala | Commons

Ranjit Singh

After Chautala was chosen as Devi Lal’s political heir in Haryana, Singh was made a Rajya Sabha member in 1990. He went on to join the Congress and then the BJP before returning to the grand old party. 

In this Haryana election, he fought and won as an Independent after the Congress did not give him a ticket. He won the Rania seat, defeating Gobind Kanda of the Haryana Lokhit Party by almost 20,000 votes. He had finished third from the seat in 2014 when Ram Chand Kamboj of the INLD won the seat. This time, the BJP gave the ticket to Ram Chand Kamboj, while the Congress preferred Vineet Kamboj.

Partap Singh

Partap Singh was elected as an MLA from Ellenabad on a Congress ticket in 1967. He then contested as an Independent in 1977, but lost.

In 1982, he contested as a Lok Dal candidate from Rori, but lost. He joined Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress in 2007 and later joined the Congress in 2010. He died in 2014.

Third generation — Ajay Chautala and Abhay Chautala

Om Prakash Chautala’s two sons, Ajay and Abhay, also joined politics. Ajay, the elder one, born in 1961, started his political career from Rajasthan and was twice elected as an MLA.  

He joined Haryana politics in the late 1990s, winning the parliamentary elections from Bhiwani in 1999 and later becoming a Rajya Sabha member in 2004. Om Prakash Chautala along with Ajay was sentenced to jail in 2013 in connection with the infamous teachers’ recruitment scam. Ajay was then an MLA from Dabwali.

Abhay, born in 1963, started his political career from the grassroots. He rose through the ranks, winning panchayat and zila parishad elections and then becoming an MLA twice.

After his father and brother were jailed, Abhay took over the reins of the party. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the INLD secured two seats in the state amidst a Modi wave across the country. 

In the assembly elections held the same year, the INLD won 19 seats and emerged as the main opposition party. Abhay was chosen as the leader of the opposition.

File photo of Abhay Singh Chautala | @abhaysinghchautla/Facebook

Also read: History repeats itself in INLD family feud, now Dushyant Chautala invokes Devi Lal


Naina Chautala

Ajay’s wife, Naina, was forced to join politics after her husband was jailed in 2013. She contested from the Dabwali assembly seat in 2014 and won. In 2019, she won from the Badhra seat as the JJP candidate. 

Kanta Chautala

Abhay’s wife, Kanta, is relatively new to politics. She contested the zila parishad elections in 2016 and defeated Aditya Chautala, another grandson of Devi Lal. Abhay’s first wife, Supriya, had died of an accidental firing in 1989.

Aditya Chautala and Anirudh Chautala

Devi Lal’s son Jagdish Chander did not have much interest in politics, but his sons were pulled into it by the BJP, mainly to cash in on Devi Lal’s legacy. 

Chander’s two sons, Aditya and Anirudh, joined the BJP. Aditya was appointed as the chairman of a cooperative bank in Haryana by the BJP during Manohar Lal Khattar’s regime. In the 2019 Haryana assembly election, he was fielded by the BJP from the Dabwali seat, which he lost to the Congress.

Ravinder Singh Chautala

Partap Singh’s son Ravinder Chautala contested as an Independent in the 2009 assembly elections against Ajay, but lost. He supported Naina Chautala during the 2014 Haryana elections after Ajay was jailed. However, now he is back in the INLD, supporting Abhay. His wife Sunaina was appointed as general secretary of the INLD’s women wing and was fielded against Naina from the Badhra seat in the 2019 assembly election.

Fourth generation — Dushyant Chautala and Digvijay Chautala

Dushyant Chautala and Digvijay Chautala are Ajay’s sons and were groomed by him to join politics.

Dushyant became the youngest MP at 26 when he won from the Sirsa seat in 2014. Digvijay was the in-charge of the party’s youth wing. However, following a family feud, Om Prakash Chautala threw Ajay and Dushyant out of the party, and the two formed the Jannayak Janta Party or the JJP. 

The JJP fielded Digvijay in the Jind bypoll in January this year but he lost. Dushyant lost the Sirsa seat in the parliamentary polls only to make a stunning comeback in the assembly elections where his JJP won 10 seats and is now forming the government in alliance with the BJP.

Abhay Chautala’s INLD, on the other hand, steered out of control after the split, lost most of his 19 MLAs to the BJP, Congress and the JJP. In these elections, the INLD was not able to even put up candidates on all the 90 assembly seats. Abhay is the sole winner from the INLD.

Arjun Chautala and Karan Chautala

Arjun is Abhay Chautala’s son and was launched into politics after the INLD split. He was fielded as the INLD candidate from Kurukshetra seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. However, he lost badly and had to even forgo his deposit. In July this year, he got engaged to former INLD MLA Dilbagh Singh’s daughter, Jasmine. Karan is Abhay’s younger son and is now the in-charge of the INLD in Haryana.


Also read: Dushyant Chautala is the new kingmaker in Haryana politics and is more than his surname