Haryana: A state full of family feuds and personality clashes

Ranjit Singh Chautala (L), Abhay Chautala (Top left), Rao Inderjit Singh (Top right), Deepender Hooda (Bottom left), Naina Singh Chautala (Bottom right)

Once upon a time in Haryana, politics was largely dominated by the ‘Lals’ – Devi Lal, Bhajan Lal, and Bansi Lal – all chief ministers at some time or the other. Through time, their descendants may have lost the grip and other clans may have been filling the space, but some members of these dynasties continue their foray into poll battle. When the 10 Lok Sabha seats of the state go to polls in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha election on May 25, some of the family members will be in fray, some not.

In 1987, Devi Lal had famously orchestrated an alliance of all opposition parties to challenge the then incumbent Congress state government led by Bansi Lal. The alliance won 85 of the 90 assembly seats and Devi Lal became the chief minister of Haryana for the second time. Following the 1989 Parliamentary election, till 1991, he was the deputy Prime Minister of India.

And 37 year later, in Hisar this time, his third-born Ranjit Singh Chautala (79) of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is pitted against family members Naina Singh Chautala (57), representing the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), and Sunaina Chautala (47) of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).

While Naina is the daughter-in-law of Devi Lal’s eldest son and former CM, Omprakash Chautala, Sunaina is the daughter-in-law of Pratap Singh Chautala, who was the second son of the patriarch.

Meanwhile, in Kurukshetra, Omprakash Chautala’s youngest son Abhay Chautala (61) is an INLD nominee. In 2019, Abhay’s younger son Arjun could garner less than 5% mandate from this seat, forfeiting his security deposit. Abhay is facing industrialist Naveen Jindal (54), who represented this seat earlier as a Congress MP, but lost in 2014. Jindal is now a BJP nominee. Incidentally, this is the only seat that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is contesting in Haryana, which has named 63-year-old businessman Sushil Kumar Gupta as its candidate.

Part of the opposition platform INDIA bloc, Congress and AAP have joined hands in Haryana, Delhi, and Gujarat to prevent a split in non-BJP votes. The latter had earlier swept the seats in these states.

The winner from Kurukshetra in 2019, Nayab Singh Saini, has now been made Chief Minister. Saini, the state BJP unit president, is from the OBC community. He will be contesting from the assembly seat of Karnal, vacated by his predecessor, Manohar Lal Khattar.

The Chief Minister is said to have been replaced due to anti-incumbency problems. Such reports had been coming for some time, but with assembly elections expected in Haryana later this year, the BJP leadership decided to withdraw Khattar from state politics. Around that time, the JJP also snapped ties with BJP and party president Dushyant Singh Chautala resigned as the deputy chief minister.

Khattar will contest from Karnal Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress has fielded Divyanshu Buddhiraja against Khattar (Lok Sabha) and Tarlochan Singh against Saini (assembly seat).

On the other side, in Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, the Congress has denied ticket to Bansi Lal’s granddaughter Shruti Choudhry (49) while BJP has decided against nominating Bhajan Lal’s son Kuldeep Bishnoi.

In 2019, Shruti Choudhry lost to BJP’s Dharambir Singh by over 4.4 lakh votes. While BJP has put its trust on Singh, the Congress has nominated Dan Singh (65), a legislator from Mahendragarh assembly constituency.

Congress national general secretary Kumari Selja (62), who won from Ambala in 2004 and 2009, lost by over 3.4 lakh votes in 2019 to BJP’s Rattan Lal Kataria. BJP is trying hard to retain the Ambala Lok Sabha constituency with Banto Kataria, widow of Rattan Lal Kataria. The Congress is trying a comeback with its nominee, Varun Chaudhary in the fray.

Selja is now contesting from Sirsa, where her father Chaudhary Dalbir Singh won in 1980 and 1984 as a Congress candidate. She is pitted against BJP’s Ashok Tanwar (47), who won here in 2009 but lost in 2014 and 2019 – all as Congress nominee.

Tanwar’s public conflicts with former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda led to his removal from the post of Haryana Congress president and he subsequently quit the party. Several times groups of supporters have clashed among themselves, even in the midst of party programmes in Delhi. Tanwar later joined TMC, then AAP which he quit in January within a month, citing protest over its alliance with the Congress.

However, feud of a different kind seems to have erupted with Hooda, his son, Rajya Sabha MP Deepender, and state Congress president Udai Bhan campaigning for eight of the candidates, while the group of party leaders Selja, Randeep Surjewala, Kiran Choudhary, and Birender Singh has restricted their canvassing within Sirsa and Kurukshetra. This group has been dubbed as “SRKB”. They refrain from stepping out of their own territory despite their names being part of the party’s 42-member list of star campaigners for Haryana. Each have considerable following in their own districts but refuse to sway voters in other areas. With the trend percolating down, keeping its flock together can be a cause for worry for the Congress.

Deepender Hooda is the Congress candidate from Rohtak. The BJP, too, has fielded a political descendent — Union minister of state Rao Inderjit Singh, son of former CM Rao Birender Singh – from Gurgaon again. In 2009, Singh won this seat as a Congress candidate, while in 2014 and 2019, he retained it with a BJP ticket. Film actor Raj Babbar is the Congress candidate against him this time.

Though the BJP is still on a strong footing, there are political undercurrents flowing adversely. While there is some anti-incumbency due to the alleged late removal of the former CM, a section of farmer unions has lodged an aggressive campaign against the BJP in Haryana.

As far as results are concerned, the principal parties contesting need to be second time lucky here, since there is an assembly election ahead this year after Parliamentary election results are out on June 4.