The Fall of Tau’s Clan

AS DEVI LAL moved along the Grand Trunk (GT) Road in Haryana, he would often stop seeing a group of farmers smoking hookah sitting on a charpoy to speak to them and gauge their problems. It was after one such interaction that, in 1987, his state govern­ment liberalised the old-age pension scheme at ₹100 per month for those over 65. The scheme won people’s hearts, was enhanced by subsequent governments, and promises to raise its quantum further were made by Devi Lal’s descendants, as it continued to be a political plank in the state.

One of the three Lals, besides Bansi Lal and Bhajan Lal, who dominated Haryana’s politics, Devi Lal or ‘Tau (uncle)’ as he was called, emerged as a farmer leader in a state where agricultural communities hold sway, governed the state twice, went on to be­come deputy prime minister, and founded the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in 1997. Today, his political legacy, which went into the hands of his children, grandchildren and great-grand­children, stands nearly decimated. INLD, headed by Om Prakash Chautala, Devi Lal’s son to whom he passed his political legacy in the state after moving to the Centre, won two seats, while its splinter group the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), founded by OP Chautala’s son Ajay Chautala in 2018 could not open its account. The last decade saw the worst decline of INLD, with its vote share dropping from 24.2 per cent in 2014 to 4.1 per cent in the Assembly elections (a marginal increase from 2.5 per cent in 2019). In the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, the party’s share dropped to 1.74 per cent from 24.4 per cent in 2014. JJP, which had become kingmaker, lending the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) support of its 10 seats when BJP fell short of a majority in the 2019 Assembly polls, got less than 1 per cent vote share, a decline from 14.80 per cent in 2019. Ajay Chautala’s son Dushyant Chautala, who was deputy chief minister in the 2019 BJP-JJP government, himself finished fifth, losing his deposit in Uchana Kalan Assembly seat where BJP’s Devender Chatar Attri defeated Congress’ Brijendra Singh by 32 votes.

Of the eight members of Devi Lal’s family who contested in the Haryana Assembly elections, only two—his great-grandson Arjun Chautala and grandson Aditya Devi Lal—both in INLD, made it to the Assembly. Arjun Chautala’s father Abhay Singh Chautala, OP Chautala’s son, however, lost the Ellanabad seat in Sirsa to Congress candidate Bharat Beniwal. In 2019, four Chautalas—Dushyant, his mother Naina and uncle Ranjit from JJP, and Abhay Singh from INLD—had won the Assembly elec­tions. Ranjit Singh Chautala, Devi Lal’s third son, who was a min­ister in the BJP-led state government, fought as an Independent this time but lost his Rania seat, a family turf, to his grand nephew Arjun Chautala. Both parties of the Jat clan eyed the Dalit votes, with INLD entering into an alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and JJP with Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram). With friction within the family tear­ing it apart, allegations of corruption against some of its senior leaders and the dominance of the two national parties—BJP and Congress—Devi Lal’s dynasty has been relegated to near-oblivion.

With friction within the family tearing it apart, allegations of corruption against some of its senior leaders and the dominance of the two national parties—BJP and Congress—Devi Lal’s dynasty has been relegated to near-oblivion

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Dushyant Chautala’s last-minute efforts to refute that his JJP, which claims to be founded on Devi Lal’s principles, op­posed the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation against the farm laws, later repealed, apparently failed to cut ice with voters. As deputy chief minister in the BJP government from 2019 till March this year, he had stood by it during the farmers’ stir, critical of the agitation, refusing to step down from the post.

Dushyant, who had named his party ‘Jan Nayak’, as Devi Lal was popularly known, faced the ire of farmers when he visited villages in the state, where the Ahir, Jat, Gujjar, and Rajput (AJGAR) groups are predominantly from the agricultural community. Devi Lal, one of the first to start the trend of loan waivers, had kept his promise when he became chief min­ister in 1987 by waiving loans of up to ₹10,000 for farmers. Besides, JJP had made an electoral promise of ₹5,100 monthly old-age pension, which the BJP-JJP government had failed to deliver. Dushyant’s brother Digvijay lost the Dabwali seat to his uncle, INLD’s Aditya Devi Lal. After snapping ties with BJP in March, an alliance the Chautalas later dubbed as a mistake, seven of JJP’s 10 MLAs quit the party, with four joining Congress and three BJP. Of them, Ram Karan Kala, who joined Congress, as well as Ram Kumar Gautam and Devender Singh Babli who fought on BJP tickets, won. JJP’s decline was evident when it lost all 10 seats in the Lok Sabha polls, with all its candidates, including Dushyant’s mother, los­ing their security deposit.

INLD’s OP Chautala, seeking to pursue Devi Lal’s political legacy, also interacted with farmers like his father, and had gone on to become chief minister four times, although he too could never complete his term. The octogenarian, tainted by charges of disproportionate assets and the junior teachers’ recruitment scam, served a nearly 10-year sentence in Tihar Jail. His son Ajay, a former Lok Sabha MP from Bhiwani, was also charged in the recruitment scam and was in prison when INLD split and JJP was launched. In this year’s Lok Sabha polls, INLD failed to win any of the seven seats it con­tested. Among those who fought was Sunaina Chautala, daughter-in-law of Devi Lal’s eldest son Pratap Singh, from Fatehabad. INLD’s best performance in Lok Sabha was in 1999, under Devi Lal, when it won all the five seats it had contested, in alliance with BJP. In subse­quent Lok Sabha elections, barring 2014 when it won two seats, INLD’s tally has been nil. After the 2000 Assembly elections, when it won 47 of the 62 seats it contested, there has been a steady decline and the party has never neared the halfway mark.

The family feud had begun when Devi Lal passed on his politi­cal mantle to OP Chautala, leaving his younger son Ranjit Singh Chautala upset. It continued down the generations. According to social scientist Jitendra Prasad, the Chautalas are victims of their own illusions that farmers will never let them down, unable to read the pulse of the electorate and not realising that things were changing. At loggerheads with each other, scurrying for alliances with other parties, fighting for survival, Devi Lal’s progeny is cling­ing to a past that is fading from public memory.

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Amita Shah