Peace eludes the fighting House of Chautalas, Haryana Assembly a witness again

Dushyant, who holds the Civil Aviation portfolio in the state, refrained from joining the issue with Abhay, younger brother to his father Ajay, restricting himself to denying the charges. However, later in the day, a privilege motion was moved against Abhay following Dushyant’s complaint to Speaker Gian Chand Gupta.

दादा जी से बात,आशीर्वाद के रूप में हाथ,
मज़बूत हौंसलों, चट्टान से इरादों का साथ।

हरियाणा के पूर्व मुख्यमंत्री और पूज्य दादा जी चौधरी ओमप्रकाश चौटाला जी के एक वैवाहिक समारोह में पैर छूकर आशीर्वाद लिया। pic.twitter.com/xBLJJDTem1

— Dushyant Chautala (@Dchautala) February 10, 2023

The Assembly, incidentally, was also to take up a Calling Attention Notice on Tuesday moved by Abhay for a discussion on an alleged Excise Department scam during the Covid-19 lockdown period in Haryana; Dushyant holds the Excise portfolio.

But since Home Minister Anil Vij was not present in the House, the Speaker deferred this for a later day, and asked Abhay to leave the House after he kept insisting that the matter be taken up.

It is not the first time that the Chautala clan has publicly quarrelled. On December 28, 2022, the last day of the Winter Session, protests were seen in the House after the Speaker first admitted a Calling Attention Notice by Abhay, but later refused to discuss it when Dushyant pointed out that the matter was sub-judice and thus could not be discussed on the floor of the Assembly.

Abhay’s notice was that time too over the running of the Excise Department, claiming a “shortfall of approximately 7.4 lakh boxes of liquor stock at the godowns of two contractors in Sonipat district”.

In 2021, on separate occasions, Abhay dubbed Dushyant an “upstart”, and the latter hit back calling his uncle “a non-serious politician”.

The Abhay and Ajay wings of Haryana’s Chautala political dynasty split during Om Prakash and Ajay’s long incarceration over a teachers’ recruitment scam. With Om Prakash’s unifying force no longer around, Ajay’s sons Dushyant and Digvijay rose in prominence, virtually seizing the party and going from strength to strength. Abhay’s sons Karan and Arjun were left behind in the race, and continue to struggle to make a mark in politics.

The INLD slid rapidly in Chautala’s absence. In 2009, when he was around, the INLD had won 31 seats and was the main opposition party in Haryana, with Chautala Leader of the Opposition. By the time of the 2014 Assembly elections, its tally had gone down to 19, as the BJP created history and won 47 seats and formed the government. As the second-largest party after the BJP, the INLD was offered Leader of the Opposition post and Abhay was named for it.

Out of power, the tension in the party continued to rise, exacerbated by the division between the sons. Om Prakash leaned towards Abhay after Ajay was seen as pushing his son Dushyant’s case too eagerly. The Chautala Senior was especially angry when, at an event to mark Devi Lal’s birth anniversary, for which both he and Ajay would come out on parole every year, Dushyant’s supporters shouted slogans as Abhay was speaking, forcing him to stop mid-way.

In the run up to the 2019 Assembly polls, finally, as Ajay’s demand to make Dushyant the face of the party was not heeded, Dushyant and Digvijay walked away and announced the JJP.

To the INLD’s mortification, while it could win only 1 seat, the JJP won 10 – enough to make it a kingmaker when the BJP fell short of a majority. Dushyant extended support to the BJP to help it form the government, in return for Deputy CM’s post and covered portfolios such as Excise and Revenue.

Last year, Chautala was convicted in a disproportionate assets case, his second after the teachers’ recruitment scam. However, his sentence was suspended and he remains out of prison.

According to sources close to the family, initially attempts were made by several common friends to get the two factions together. However, all such attempts failed.

His party a shadow of its former self, and the possibility of a rapprochement within the family bleak, Om Prakash Chautala has lately been reaching out to “old friends” in national politics. He hopes to find the INLD space in a larger Opposition coalition or a possible third front against the ruling BJP, which would gain it some clout ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls.

A show of strength was held by the INLD in Fatehabad in September last year, where several political stalwarts from across party lines shared the stage with Chautala.

Last week, Chautala paid a visit to veteran Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda when he was admitted in hospital for a health check-up. A day later, he told mediapersons that even an alliance with the Congress to topple the BJP could not be ruled out – something that would have been unthinkable once among the sworn Haryana rivals.

Hooda, however, played this down, telling mediapersons: “He (Chautala) is our elder. So what if he came to check my well-being at the hospital? When he was hospitalised, I also went to see him.”

Meanwhile, away from the INLD’s struggles, Dushyant has been strengthening his JJP, and the party and ally BJP might contest separately in 2024 to maximise their numbers.

The JJP is also testing the waters beyond Haryana, and could make a start from the coming polls in Rajasthan, a state where its core vote bank of Jats have a considerable population.