Haryana Congress leader Kiran Choudhry, daughter Shruti quit party, to join BJP

BJP national secretary Om Prakash Dhankar welcomed her decision to join the saffron party. “Congress ignored and sidelined a good leader (Kiran) while refusing to give her the rightful dues in the party,” said Dhankar while referring to denial of Lok Sabha ticket to her daughter Shruti Choudhry from Bhiwani-Mahendragarh. The BJP leader also recalled how the party had formed an alliance government with Bansi Lal -led Haryana Vikas Party in 1996.

A four-time MLA, Kiran is the daughter-in-law of former Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal. A bête noire of senior Congress leader and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Kiran has alleged that she was ignored during the recent Lok Sabha elections. Instead of fielding her daughter Shruti Choudhry, a former MP from the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh parliamentary seat, the Congress fielded a Hooda loyalist, Rao Dan Singh, who lost the poll battle.

The Congress is set to face this jolt at a time when the party has performed well in Haryana, winning five out of ten Lok Sabha seats in the state recently. The Congress-led INDIA bloc in the state maintained a lead in 46 assembly seats while leaving 44 seats for the ruling BJP during the parliamentary polls.

Earlier in 2022, the Hooda camp had openly accused Choudhry, along with Kuldeep Bishnoi, who was then in the Congress, of causing the defeat of Congress candidate Ajay Maken in the Rajya Sabha elections. However, Kiran had rubbished the allegations. At that time, BJP leaders speculated that she might join the saffron party. However, she insisted, “I am not going anywhere. A lot of my well-wishers in the party want me to leave, but these well-wishers should know that Kiran Choudhry is not among those who run away,” she had asserted.

Choudhry had been an MLA from Delhi before she entered Haryana politics following the death of her husband and Bansi Lal’s son, Surender Singh, in a helicopter crash in 2005. Surender Singh was then a minister in the Hooda government. She is now a four-time MLA from Tosham (Bhiwani).

With the joining of Kiran Choudhry, the BJP would have members from all three of Haryana’s famous political Lal families: Bansi Lal, Bhajan Lal, and Devi Lal. Bhajan Lal’s son, Kuldeep Bishnoi, joined the BJP in 2022, with Kuldeep’s son later winning the family’s pocket borough Adampur on the BJP ticket. From Devi Lal’s family, the BJP has his son, Ranjit Singh Chautala, who is the state power minister in the Haryana government.