Meet Chautala family’s winning duo: Arjun Chautala & Aditya Devi Lal, new INLD faces

Former power minister Ranjit Chautala, 79, is the younger brother of Arjun’s grandfather Om Prakash Chautala, who is the son of late Devi Lal. Ranjit contested as an Independent after being denied ticket by the BJP.

In the 2019 Assembly polls, three members of the Chautala family – Dushyant Chautala of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), his mother Naina Chautala and Ranjit – had proved successful.

Arjun, who studied from Shimla’s Bishop Cotton School, had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from the Kurukshetra seat but ended up at fifth place. This time, the INLD fielded him from the Rania seat which falls in Sirsa district, the traditional stronghold of the Chautala family.

Arjun’s great grandfather Devi Lal, who started his politics from Sirsa had ascended to the Deputy PM’s post while Lal’s son Om Prakash Chautala, the INLD chief, has been the Haryana Chief Minister five times.

Arjun’s father Abhay, 61, is Om Prakash’s younger son. Abhay contested from Ellenabad of Sirsa district, but lost the election.

Other Chautalas also tasted defeat. JJP leader and former Deputy CM Dushyant, 36, again contested from Uchana Kalan, but could not retain his seat.

Sunaina Chautala, the daughter-in-law of Devi Lal’s eldest son Partap Singh Chautala, contested unsuccessfully from Fatehabad as an INLD candidate.

Arjun’s elder brother Karan Chautala is the chairperson of the Sirsa Zila Parishad. Both brothers had become active after the INLD faced a split in 2018, which led to the emergence of the breakaway JJP headed by Ajay Chautala, Duhyant’s father.

Several members of the Devi Lal clan took on each other in Sirsa’s Dabwali constituency. Contesting on the INLD’s ticket, Aditya Devi Lal, 47, son of Jagdish Chander, fourth son of Devi Lal, won from the Dabwali seat. Sitting MLA and Congress candidate Amit Sihag, who lost the election, is also one of Devi Lal’s grandsons. Dushyant’s younger brother Digvijay Chautala, 33, was the JJP candidate from the seat.

Arjun and Aditya have thus become the only two winning candidates from the INLD which had forged an alliance with the BSP to fight the polls.

Aditya, who has been a critic of Dushyant, had switched from the INLD to the BJP in 2014. He, however, could not get the BJP’s ticket to contest the Assembly polls that year.

In 2016, Aditya defeated his sister-in-law Kanta Singh Chautala, wife of Abhay Chautala, in the Zila Parishad member election in Sirsa.

In the 2019 Assembly polls, the BJP fielded Aditya from Dabwali but he lost to Sihag. Later in the same year, the BJP appointed Aditya as the Sirsa district party president. The BJP-led government also appointed him as the chairperson of the Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board in April 2023. Ahead of the current Assembly polls, in September, Aditya returned to the INLD, which fielded him from the Dabwali seat.