Dear Reader,
Politics in Haryana has always been strong on family and legacy. The sons of the soil, or dharti ke lal as they are called, have always left a mark, be it the three powerful Lals of the past—Devi Lal, Bhajan Lal, and Bansi Lal—or, for that matter, the Lal who has left behind that most enduring legacy, that of political defections, Gaya Lal, whose name led to the coinage of the phrase “Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram” which is still used to define party-hoppers.
An IAS officer named Ram Varma wrote a book titled My Encounter With The Three Lals of Haryana, which has great anecdotal value. In the book, Bansi Lal is the builder, who created a network of roads and highways; Devi Lal is the farmer leader with great charm; and Bhajan Lal is the go-getter in difficult situations.
Readers might recall Devi Lal’s earthy humour. As Deputy Prime Minister, he was a joy to the Opposition benches with his unconventional one-liners that often discomfited the V.P. Singh government. Addressing a rally in a Haryana village once, he attacked the Central government for extracting all electricity from the water supplied to farmers, promising to ensure that “electrified water” reached the farmers to help them increase their crop yield!
“Lal” in Hindi means “son”. It has great emotional appeal and this time, a son of the Devi Lal lineage, Dushyant Chautala, is in trouble. Devi Lal’s great-grandson and the co-founder of the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), Dushyant helped the BJP form the government after a fractured mandate in the 2019 Assembly election. Chautala has since stood with the BJP through thick and thin, even at the cost of risking his party’s support base among the Jats and farmers who held massive agitations against the BJP government at the Centre, first in end-2020 and again in February 2024. Even when Haryana’s women wrestlers protested against the BJP MP and Wrestling Federation of India chairman Brij Bhushan Singh, Chautala stuck with the BJP.
But in March this year, the BJP sprang a rude surprise when it suddenly broke its ties with the JJP. There was no immediate tangible provocation, so it would seem that the BJP had read the writing on the wall and was preparing for the Assembly election later this year. Last week, in another surprise, three independent MLAs withdrew support from the Nayab Saini-led BJP government. But when Chautala (and members of the Congress) pressed for a floor test, Chautala got another rude surprise when six MLAs of his party revolted, and announced support for the BJP government.
Haryana has 10 Lok Sabha seats, and the BJP won all of them in 2019. Dushyant Chautala, who had won the Hisar Lok Sabha seat in 2014, lost it in 2019. Devi Lal’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) also lost both the seats it had won in 2014.
But in the 2019 Assembly election, the JJP won 10 seats. When the BJP with 40 seats could not get a simple majority, it was the JJP that joined hands with the BJP, in return getting the Deputy Chief Ministership for the young Dushyant Chautala (Ajay Chautala’s son) in the Manohar Lal Khattar government. In that election, the Congress won 31 seats and the INLD 1.
What is the history of the JJP and the INLD? Old man Devi Lal, who founded the INLD, had two sons, Omprakash Chautala and Ranjit Chautala, the former being his political heir. Omprakash Chautala, in turn, had two sons, Abhay Chautala and Ajay Chautala. After bitter bickering, Ajay parted ways with the INLD and formed his own Jannayak Janata Party in 2018.
Today, the family divide continues, but Dushyant Chautala faces the bigger crisis. In this Lok Sabha election, the INLD’s Abhay Chautala is contesting from Kurukshetra while Dushyant is engaged in saving his fledgling party, with former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar claiming on record that six JJP MLAs are with the BJP. To escape disqualification under the anti-defection law, two-thirds of the MLAs have to come together to seek severance from the parent party, which means a split can be sustained only if 7 of the 10 JJP MLAs break away and form a new outfit or join another party.
Devi Lal’s is the only Lal family whose successors seem to have survived the choppy waters of Haryana politics. It is his son Ranjit Chautala who has got the Hisar ticket from the BJP this time.
Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party flopped and had to be merged with the Congress. Bansi Lal’s granddaughter Shruti Choudhry wanted to fight from the family’s traditional seat of Mahendragarh-Bhiwani, but was denied a ticket by the Congress.
Similarly, Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was denied the Hisar ticket in favour of Devi Lal’s son, might be seeing the end of his career. Bhajan Lal and Bishnoi had formed the Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) in 2007 and won six seats in the 2009 Assembly election, but soon five of their MLAs defected to the Congress. In 2011, Bishnoi won the Hisar Lok Sabha seat in a byelection with the BJP’s backing but lost to the INLD’s Dushyant Chautala in 2014. In 2014, Bishnoi snapped ties with the BJP, and in 2016 he merged the HJC with the Congress. In 2022, however, he rejoined the BJP. Now, he has been edged out there too.
Hisar, in fact, is turning out to be a battle of the Chautalas. Against the BJP’s Ranjit Chautala, the JJP has fielded Dushyant’s mother and two-term MLA Naina Chautala. As if this was not enough, the INLD has fielded Sunaina Chautala, the wife of a cousin of Abhay Chautala. The Congress is represented by its three-time MP Jai Parkash. If one of the Chautalas win, the Lal legacy will live to see another day.
Thank you for reading Poll Vault, our election-ready newsletter. Watch this space as campaign season heats up. Until then...
Anand Mishra | Political Editor, Frontline
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