How did the Chautala family go from hero to zero in Haryana politics, today they have to struggle to save their existence

We have always read since childhood that unity is strength. In politics too, due to unity, the fortunes of many parties improve. On the other hand, due to division, parties have to face losses. Assembly elections have been announced in Haryana. Political parties have started preparing for it. Amidst all this, the political history of the Chautala family, one of the most politically influential families in Haryana, has been tremendous. Indian National Lok Dal has been a family party. However, after the division in the family, the party also split. INLD is led by 89-year-old Om Prakash Chautala and his son Abhay Chautala. While the command of the Jannayak Janata Party, formed after separating from INLD, is in the hands of Om Prakash’s elder son Ajay Chautala and his son Dushyant Chautala.

 

If we try to understand the political history of the Chautala family, the name of Devi Lal comes up somewhere. Devi Lal has been the former Deputy Prime Minister of the country and a Jat leader. Currently, INLD patron and Devi Lal’s son Om Prakash has been an MLA seven times and has taken over as the Chief Minister of Haryana five times. Abhay and Ajay Chautala also have a long political history. But if we look at the present, both INLD and JJP are struggling to maintain their political legacy in the state. With the rise of BJP, INLD kept weakening in the state. In the 2019 elections, the Jannayak Janata Party performed well under the leadership of Dushyant Chautala. Whereas INLD could win only one seat then. There was also a big drop in vote percentage.

After the excellent performance of JJP and in the event of BJP not getting absolute majority in the state, a coalition government is formed there. Dushyant Chautala becomes the Deputy Chief Minister in the government formed under the leadership of Manohar Lal Khattar. However, before the Lok Sabha elections, BJP surprised everyone by breaking its alliance with JJP and made Nayab Singh Saini the Chief Minister in place of Khattar. However, since then JJP is also seen continuously weakening. The party had 10 MLAs. But currently only three MLAs are left. The rest of the MLAs of the party are either trying to join BJP or Congress or have already joined.

Dushyant claims that he is unconcerned about the departure of these leaders. “JJP is Chaudhary Devi Lal’s nursery. People come here, get trained, take up positions and then leave in times of struggle,” he says. The last time the Chautala family fought elections unitedly under the aegis of the INLD and influenced the Haryana elections was the 2009 election, when the party won 31 seats with a vote share of 25.79%. At that time Om Prakash was the leader of the opposition, while the Congress, which won 40 seats, formed the government again with the support of independent MLAs. The BJP then managed to win only 4 seats. In 2014, when the BJP came to power at the Centre under the leadership of Narendra Modi, the party made history in Haryana too, winning 47 seats and forming a full majority government in the state for the first time.

In the 2014 assembly elections too, the Chautala family had fought unitedly and the INLD had won 19 seats with 24.1% vote share. The Congress got only 15 seats. Abhay was made the LoP in the absence of Om Prakash, who was jailed after being convicted in the JBT teacher recruitment scam. During Dushyant’s nearly four-and-a-half-year tenure as deputy chief minister, the JJP hoped that it would be able to increase its support base in the state, but that did not happen. He faced the anger of a section of people of Haryana and leaders and MLAs of his own party during the year-long farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s three controversial farm laws. The JJP also fielded 19 candidates in Rajasthan in the November 2023 assembly elections, all of whom lost their deposits.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the JJP contested all 10 seats in Haryana while the INLD contested seven of them. Neither party won a single seat, with the BJP and Congress winning five seats each. Neither the JJP nor the INLD managed to lead in any assembly constituency in the state. In the Jat-dominated Hisar seat, Congress’ Jai Prakash, who was once a supporter of Devi Lal, defeated three members of the Chautala family – Devi Lal’s son Ranjit Singh (BJP) and Om Prakash’s daughters-in-law Sunaina Chautala (INLD) and Naina Chautala (JJP).

 

However, many loyalists of the Chautala family still believe that they can make a comeback in state politics if both the INLD and the JJP unite and fight elections together. But, given the bitterness between them, such a scenario is highly unlikely to emerge at this point of time. In an X post on Sunday, Abhay said: “Kingbreaker of Haryana… like a trustbreaker! From breaking the trust of his grandfather and farmers to now breaking the trust of his own MLAs, Dushyant’s journey will go down in the history books. Will he ever stop?”