Paroles amid elections: How Dera chief Ram Rahim’s jail exits play out in Haryana polls

In 2017, Ram Rahim was sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping two of his disciples in the Dera headquarters in Sirsa. Since then, he has been out of prison either on parole or furlough at least 11 times. By the time his current parole ends, he would spend more than 275 days of his sentence outside jail.

Ram Rahim’s paroles and furloughs have often coincided with the elections in Haryana and even in Punjab or Rajasthan. Several constituencies of these states, especially Haryana, are said to have a sizeable number of the Dera’s followers.

In 2022, the Dera chief was let out of prison thrice. First came a 21-day furlough in early February, weeks before the Punjab Assembly elections.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) swept to power with 92 seats as against the Congress’s 18, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)’s 3 and the BJP-led NDA’s 2 seats in the 117-member Assembly.

Ram Rahim then got a 30-day parole from June 17 till July 18, with the move raising eyebrows as the municipal elections were then round the corner in Haryana for 46 local bodies, including 18 municipal council and 26 municipal committees. Though he stayed put in his Baghpat ashram, his online satsang (discourse) in Rohtak district created a stir after BJP leader and ex-Karnal mayor Renu Bala Gupta was seen seeking his blessings virtually. In these polls, the BJP won 25 local bodies while the Congress and the party-backed Independents won 20.

In 2022, the Dera chief was again released from October 15 till November 25, which coincided with the bypoll in Adampur, a stronghold of former chief minister Bhajan Lal’s family. Bhajan Lal’s grandson Bhavya Bishnoi, contesting on the BJP’s ticket, won the seat.

In 2023, Ram Rahim stepped out of prison on a 30-day parole in July-August, that coincided with the Haryana panchayat elections, in which a majority of the BJP-backed candidates won.

He was next released from November 21 till December 13 during the Rajasthan Assembly elections, which saw the BJP coming to power by winning 115 seats out of 200 as against the Congress’s 70 seats.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Dera had openly supported the BJP in Haryana. The party had won seven seats out of 10 in the state as against the Congress’s two seats. It had however lost from the Sirsa (Scheduled Castes-reserved) constituency to the INLD’s candidate.

Later that year, the Dera backed the BJP in the elections to the 90-member Haryana Assembly too, in which the party emerged as the victor, forming its government in the state for the first time as its tally rose to 47 from 4 in 2009.

After the poll results, several BJP leaders made a beeline to meet Ram Rahim with the pictures of their vehicles lined up outside the Dera headquarters going viral.

But such a bonhomie took a hit after Ram Rahim’s conviction in 2017 and two years later, during the 2019 Lok Sabha and Haryana Assembly elections, the Dera did not support any political party. The BJP swept the Lok Sabha polls and later also managed to form a coalition government in the state with the JJP despite stopping short of a simple majority.

Early this year, the Dera chief remained out of prison from January 19 till March 10. His son’s father-in-law is three-time Congress MLA Harminder Jassi, who switched to the BJP this May during the Lok Sabha polls. Both the BJP and the Congress got 5 seats each in the polls, but the latter won from the Sirsa seat by a margin of nearly 3 lakh votes.

In the upcoming Assembly polls, the Dera has not indicated its support for any party so far. Just before his release, the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) however wrote to the Election Commission (EC) to oppose his parole, saying it would violate the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The state chief electoral officer (CEO) set conditions for his parole, including a ban on his entry in Haryana, delivering public speeches or indulging in any political activity.

The Dera chief is known to have political connections cutting across party lines.

Prison officials have claimed that Ram Rahim has not got “any preferential treatment” and that he has been availing of the provision of temporary release that is available to all convicts.

According to the Haryana government figures, in 2023, of the 5,832 convicts in the state’s three central and 17 district jails, 2,801 prisoners availed of temporary release, including 2007 on parole and 794 on furlough. Some convicts availed of both and that too multiple times during the year, claim officials. The above figure excludes 183 convicts who availed of temporary release from prison, including “emergency parole” and “custody parole” in the same period.

Besides former Haryana jail minister Ranjit Singh Chautala – who has now turned a BJP rebel to contest as an Independent from Rania seat in Sirsa district – CM Nayab Singh Saini and ex-CM Manohar Lal Khattar have consistently supported paroles and furloughs for Ram Rahim, maintaining that no rules have been violated.

Last year, when asked about the Dera chief’s frequent paroles, Khattar cited rules, saying “If he (Ram Rahim) has got parole, then it must be after following all the procedures and that is his right. All the convicts apply for parole as per the rules. If the rule permits, he gets it; if the rule does not permit, he does not get it”.