Haryana’s first family fights on the street

Taking on Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, who is considered thepolitical heir to former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, is Ranjit Singh,his younger brother and the pretender plotting to usurp the legacy. Chautala,who heads the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), is gung-ho. “êiDevi Lalji nemujha apna uttradhikari bahut pahle chun liya thaêr (Devi Lal had elected meas his successor a long time ago),” he says.

Ranjit refuses to accept this. “Chautala may have been passed the baton byDevi Lal, but I am the true inheritor of his political legacy as well asthis constituency,” he insists. Devi Lal, who had once publicly disownedChautala in the ’80s, has already made up his mind. He has gone round theconstituency, appealing to his supporters to elect his elder son.

Not that there was any doubt about it. But there was skepticism in somecircles if the octogenarian leader would let his two sons face each other.“He tried to convince me that I must withdraw from the race becauseChautala refuses to opt out. But I told him that Chautala is 12 years olderto me. êiPhir bhi ek bachche ki tarah behave kar raha haiêr (Still he isbehaving like a child). I declined to withdraw,” says the Congress nominee.

The two brothers, who started the campaign with an unwritten accord not tomake personal allegations against each other, are giving it their best shot.While the INLD chief, who is busy campaigning for his nominees elsewhere,has himself visited the constituency only twice, his wrestler son, AbhaySingh Chautala, is running the campaign. The thrust of the INLD rhetoric isthe development works undertaken by the Chautala Government in the last sixmonths.

“We will win easily. People have got an opportunity to elect a ChiefMinister. I don’t think they are going to waste it,” is the mantra of thehundreds of smug INLD workers in the constituency. What seems to bolstertheir confidence is the presence of about 31,000 Sikh voters in theconstituency. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and other friends ofDevi Lal have already toured the area to seek support for Chautala.

In the 1996 assembly elections, Chautala had won the seat by easilydefeating Jagdish Nehra of Congress by a margin of over 8,300 votes. “Wewill double the victory margin this time,” says Abhay Chautala. But RanjitSingh seems determined not to let the election be a one-sided affair. Hiscampaign initially lacked the punch, but it is picking up after his patch-upwith Jagdish Nehra and other local leaders.

No match to the oratorial skill of his elder brother, Ranjit is trying tocome across as a more honest and straight politician. “Nehra was rightlyupset with me because I have made mistakes. But I have learnt from them. Andthat’s why I am telling you not to make the same mistake by trustingChautala. The promises being made by him are all lies,” he tells hisaudience in Darewala village.

“Chautala has been saying that he will win easily, but that’s a big liebecause the BBC is giving 45 seats to the Congress. It’s not Doordarshan orStar TV, it is BBC,” he adds. While Ranjit has also got Madhavrao Scindia,Amarinder Singh and a host of other senior party leaders to campaign forhim, his success will depend on the outcome of his attempts to projecthimself as a “man wronged by his family.” Essentially, he remains anunderdog.

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