Son's expulsion from INLD part of former Haryana CM Chautala's strategy?

Chautala expelled son Ajay Singh from INLD on Wednesday

[File] Om Prakash Chautala | PTI [File] Om Prakash Chautala | PTI

Family feuds and picking one son over the other as political successor are nothing new in political dynasties with many children. When it happened in the Lok Dal, Haryana's jat patriarch and party supreme Chaudhary Devi Lal was aware it was almost time-up for him. He chose Om Prakash Chautala, second of his five sons.

Chautala , who went on to become chief minister of Haryana and the supremo of Lok Dal's next-gen version—the Indian National Lok Dal—is afflicted by polio. One foot was affected, resulting in a limp he carries till date. But that notwithstanding, he was always active in the political activities of his father, as well as the Hisar district and adjoining areas. Contemporaries of Devi Lal, too, conceded that Om Prakash Chautala was a great mobiliser of crowds and a valuable organisational man. When Devi Lal won 85 of 90 assembly seats wooing farmers with the "karza maaf" slogan in 1987, the unimagined, and unprecedented success was attributed to Chautala, and for the first time, he came to the front row of state politics.

In a sense, he had earned his place, and his father had chosen judiciously, from among his sons.

On Wednesday, when Chautala, now 83, expelled son Ajay Singh Chautala from the post of INLD's state unit secretary general as well as the primary membership of the party, sources said it was not that he was choosing the better of the two sons—Ajay and Abhay Singh Chautala—to succeed him. Ajay Chautala and he have been sentenced to jail in what is called the teachers' recruitment scam in Haryana, while Abhay is the opposition leader in Haryana. 

"Ajay and Abhay are both good leaders of the party, and they could have worked together without any problem. But it is grandson Dushyant Singh's growing popularity in the party that has made Chautala favour Abhay," explained Ran Singh, a former MLA. Ran Singh was close to the Devi Lal family for many years, though is estranged now. 

According to him, Devi Lal would prefer to have son Abhay, 55, lead the party, rather than 30-year old Dushyant. Dushyant and his brother Digvijay Chautala were perceived as drawing their strength from father Ajay, and growing enormous clout in the party. It is to be noted that Dushyant was also first suspended and then expelled from the party, along with his brother. But the two have declined to "accept the expulsion".

"All this is strategy for now. There is no immediate threat of a split in the party," was the view of an optimistic senior leader of the party. In the next few months, the Chautalas would all rally behind Abhay to defeat the BJP and Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar—both in the Lok Sabha and state legislature elections in 2019, the leader explained. 

Whether that is wishful thinking or true will be known on November 17, when the INLD has called for a meeting of party MPs and MLAs in Chandigarh, and Ajay Chautala, of his supporters, in Jind. 

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