Haryana: Jat politics veteran Om Prakash Chautala had a long association with controversies, his political life was full of ups and downs.

Chandigarh : Friends, Om Prakash Chautala, known to us as OP Chautala, was undoubtedly one of the most important political personalities of Haryana, whose political journey spanned several decades. He was a towering figure in Indian politics and a prominent leader of the Jat community, but his career was also full of controversies and he even had to serve a prison sentence in a corruption case.

Chautala, born on January 1, 1935, was the five-time Chief Minister of Haryana, died in Gurugram on Friday at the age of 89. Born into an influential political family, Chautala was the eldest son of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal and head of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), the party founded by his father. Chautala's father was a prominent figure in Indian politics.

Click here for news of Uttar Pradesh

Apart from being the Deputy Prime Minister, Devi Lal was also the Chief Minister of Haryana and was called the messiah of farmers. Although Chautala could never match his father, he was known for his tremendous political acumen and wit, despite being less educated. Chautala was the Chief Minister of the state five times, although he completed his entire tenure only between 1999 and 2005.

Meanwhile, from 1989 to July 1999, he was intermittently Chief Minister. In 1989, when Devi Lal became the Deputy Prime Minister in the Janata Dal government, Chautala became the Chief Minister. He was a six-time MLA and was elected MLA for the first time in 1970 from Ellenabad in Sirsa, which was considered the stronghold of the Chautala family. He also won elections from Narwana, Uchana, Darba Kalan and Rodi.

Chautala's younger brothers Pratap and Ranjit Chautala were also MLAs, while the other brother Jagdish's son Aditya Devi Lal is the current INLD MLA. Chautala's two sons Abhay and Ajay and his sons are also in politics.

If we look at it, Chautala was also associated with controversies a lot. In the year 1990, Meham assembly seat was in the news at the national level after large-scale violence. The opposition had then accused Chautala of putting pressure on him for his victory there. This episode became known as “Maham Scandal” in Haryana politics. Later the elections on this seat had to be postponed thrice.

Click here for country news

The 'Maham incident' took place after a rebel Lok Dal leader and seven others were killed in the violence. Chautala was Chief Minister for some time between 1989 and 1991. He completed his full term in 1999. During this period, BJP was an ally of INLD, although it was not a part of the government.

INLD was then an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre, but the two broke ties before the 2005 Haryana Assembly elections. Chautala was the Chief Minister from December 1989 to May 1990, from 12 July 1990 to 17 July 1990, from March 1991 to 6 April 1991 and from July 1999 to February 2005. INLD never came to power in Haryana after 2005 and its graph kept falling for years after the electoral defeat.

Then in December 2018, after the split in INLD due to family feud, Chautala's elder son Ajay Chautala formed Jannayak Janata Party (JJP). JJP later supported BJP in 2019, which did not get majority. But this alliance broke in March 2024, when BJP made Naib Singh Saini the Chief Minister in place of Manohar Lal Khattar.

Chautala suffered a major setback when he had to go to jail in 2013 in connection with the teacher recruitment scam. Chautala, his son Ajay, an IAS officer and 53 others were convicted and sentenced in the case of illegal recruitment of 3,206 junior basic teachers during the INLD government in 2000.
After this, in January 2013, the special CBI court had sentenced everyone to different periods of jail in this case. Chautala was released from Delhi's Tihar Jail in July 2021 after serving a 10-year jail sentence in the teacher recruitment scam case. Later in May 2022, he was again sent to Tihar Jail after being sentenced to four years in jail in a disproportionate assets (DA) case. As before, he was kept in jail number two and at the age of 87, he became the oldest prisoner in the jail.

In August 2002, the Delhi High Court suspended Chautala's four-year sentence pending his appeal against his conviction in the disproportionate assets case. In 2002, the Chautala-led INLD government faced criticism from various quarters when nine farmers were killed in police firing on agitating farmers in Kandela village in Jind district.

Chautala's “Sarkar Aapke Dwar” program was a major initiative of the INLD government throughout its tenure as Chief Minister. The Chief Minister visited every village, asked the people about their needs and took decisions in front of them, implementing their demands. At the age of 82, Chautala passed the Higher Secondary examination in first division while serving a 10-year sentence in Tihar Jail.

Chautala's younger son Abhay Singh Chautala is a senior INLD leader, while former MP Ajay Chautala heads the JJP. Abhay Chautala's son Arjun Chautala is a Haryana MLA, while Ajay Chautala's sons Dushyant Chautala and Digvijay Chautala are JJP leaders. Dushyant Chautala was the Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana during the Khattar government. Chautala's daughter-in-law and Ajay Chautala's wife Naina Chautala has also been an MLA from JJP. (With agency input)