Chandigarh, Oct 24 (IANS) Haryana’s regional outfit, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), which won 19 seats in the 2014 assembly elections, has been virtually wiped out in this election.
However, its less than 12-month-old defected Jannayak Janata Party (BJP) emerges a key player in the next government formation by winning at least 10 seats in a 90-member assembly. The INLD won the lone seat.
Interestingly, the original party diminished, but the third and fourth generations of its founder and former Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhary Devi Lal survived by winning their respective seats.
The Chautala clan who won the elections are Abhay Singh, Dushyant, Naina and Aditya Devi Lal.
Dushyant Chautala, the great grandson of the late Devi Lal, who led the newly formed JJP won from Uchana Kalan in Jind district by defeating sitting legislator Prem Lata, 59, wife of former Union Minister Birender Singh.
His party contested all 90 assembly seats.
So is his estranged uncle and Devi Lal’s grandson Abhay Singh Chautala, who retained Ellenabad seat in Sirsa.
Dushyant’s mother Naina Chautala won from Badhra in Bhiwani district on JJP ticket.
The BJP fielded Devi Lal’s grandson Aditya Devi Lal from Dabwali in Sirsa district, but he lost the seat to Congress’ Amit Sihag.
Dushyant, a business administration graduate from California State University, parted ways with the INLD in December 2018 after a bitter vertical split in the party and the Chautala family.
Former Member of Parliament Dushyant’s father, Ajay Chautala, is the elder son of four-time Chief Minister and INLD President Om Prakash Chautala.
The INLD, which ruled the state the last time from 2000 to 2004, was divided owing to difference between Ajay and Abhay Chautala. Their father remained with the younger son Abhay.
Abhay, however, turned down former Chief Minister and Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s offer of joining hands in forming the government.
“My party shall never support Congress,” Chautala told the the media.
“The Congress is the party that hatched the conspiracy to frame INLD’s chief Om Prakash Chautala and senior leader Ajay Chautala in a corruption case and got them imprisoned. We can never forgive the party for such conspiracy against our senior leaders. We can never support Congress, whose leader (Bhupinder Singh Hooda) is facing corruption charges,” he added.
–IANS
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