Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) supremo and five-time Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, who passed away Friday at his Gurugram residence, was the patriarch of one of the most influential political families of the state. He was 89.
For over five decades, Chautala had been one of the most dominant figures of Haryana politics.
Born to former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal and Harki Devi, Chautala grew up observing his father who was associated with farmer causes throughout his life.
Devi Lal was with the Janata Party in his early political career and became the Haryana CM twice. He went on to become the Deputy PM in 1989, a post he held till 1991, in the non-Congress governments headed by VP Singh and Chandra Shekhar respectively.
After the CM chair was vacated by his father, Chautala took charge of it for the first time on December 2, 1989. As he was not an MLA then, he contested a bypoll from the Meham seat. Voting was held on February 27, 1990 , but due to allegations of booth capturing, repolling was ordered by the Election Commission on eight polling booths.
Just a few days before the polling was to again take place, Amir Singh, an Independent candidate from Meham, was killed. The issue snowballed into a major controversy, and was even raised in the Parliament, necessitating the resignation of Chautala as CM. Banarsi Das Gupta then became the CM.
Amidst all this, Chautala contested another bypoll from the Darba Kalan seat and won. Gupta was promptly removed as CM; he had barely served for 51 days.
Chautala then took over as CM for the second time.
With rising heat on Chautala over the episode in Meham, then PM VP Singh was said to have conveyed that it would be best for Chauatala to step down.
So, Chautala had to quit in just five days of assuming the office again. The Janata Party then named Master Hukam Singh as the CM.
On November 7, 1990 when VP Singh’s government fell and Chander Shekhar took over as the PM, Devi Lal was again appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister of the country.
Four months later, in March 1991, Hukam Singh resigned — reportedly on Devi Lal’s insistence — and Chautala was back as the CM.
But this manoeuvre prompted a defection within his party. A number of his MLAs quit and the Chautala government fell within a fortnight of this decision. As Chautala lost support of his MLAs, President’s rule was imposed in Haryana between April and June of 1991.
In the elections that followed, the Congress won that led to Bhajan Lal becoming the CM.
In the 1996 Haryana polls, the Bansi Lal, the Haryana Vikas Party (HVP) leader, formed the government with the support of the BJP.
But three years later, the BJP withdrew its support to the HVP. The government fell. By that time, Devi Lal left the Janata Dal and established the INLD.
Chautala inducted a few HVP MLAs into the INLD fold, formed the government, and took over as the CM for the fourth time on July 24, 1999.
In the 2000 Haryana polls, the INLD got a full majority and Chautala became the CM again. For the first time, he would serve a full five-year term.
Several rows
In 2013, Chautala was convicted in a recruitment scandal for which he served a jail sentence of 10 years in the Tihar prison.
A CBI court convicted Chautala, along with his elder son Ajay Chautala (now the national convener of the Jannayak Janta Party or JJP) on charges of corruption and criminal conspiracy in the appointment of 3,206 Junior-Basic-Training (JBT) teachers.
Chautala was released from jail only last year, along with his son Ajay.
In the 2009 polls, the INLD won 31 seats out of 90 and emerged as the main Opposition in the state, with Chautala becoming the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Assembly.
Later, with Chautala in jail since 2013, the INLD struggled to stay relevant in the state politics. The party slipped to 19 seats in the 2014 Assembly polls, while the BJP formed its first government in the state after winning 47 seats.
In the run up to the 2019 polls, a family feud resulted in the split of the INLD and the formation of the breakaway JJP. The party was formed by Chautala’s grandson Dushyant Chautala (Ajay Chautala’s son).
The INLD is currently being led by Chautala’s son Abhay Chautala.
The JJP won 10 seats in the 2019 polls and emerged as a kingmaker when the BJP fell short of a majority and had to enter into a post-poll alliance with the former. Dushyant bagged the deputy CM’s post and also got vital portfolios including Excise and Revenue.
After the split, the INLD declined further. In the 2019 polls, the INLD could only retain Abhay Chautala’s Ellenabad seat.
The JJP contested the 2024 Assembly polls in alliance with the Chandershekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) but did not win a single seat. The INLD got two seats in the polls.
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