The lone MLA of Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana Assembly, Abhay Chautala, on Thursday resigned from his seat in protest against the Union government’s response towards the farmers’ demand to repeal the three farm laws.
Incidentally, this move came two days after the ugly incident in Delhi on the occasion of Republic Day.
Chautala told the media that he had been constantly supporting the farmers’ movement and was dismayed by the stand taken by the Narendra Modi government.
Abhay is the uncle of the present deputy chief minister and Jannayak Janata Party leader, Dushyant Chautala. The JJP, which has 10 MLAs supports the BJP led government of Manohar Lal Khattar. The saffron party has 40 members in the House of 90. The Congress is the second largest party with 31 legislators.
Abhay Chautala’s father Om Prakash Chautala, now undergoing jail term, was the former chief minister of Haryana. Om Prakash’s father Chaudhary Devi Lal had served as the chief minister and then as the deputy Prime Minister of India. The family once used to have substantial hold over the Jat votes.
However, in December 2018, that is ten months before the Assembly election of 2019, young Dushyant broke away from INLD and formed his own JJP. Though he won the election on the plea that he would never join hands with the BJP he sided with the saffron party and the serving chief minister Khattar after the latter’s party failed to get majority.
In the initial days of the farmers’ movement, Dushyant too sounded uncomfortable with the Centre’s policy. A couple leaders of his party too resigned. But after his meeting with the Home Minister Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi he appears to have changed his stand.
Political observers are of the view that by resigning from his seat Abhay may try to recover the lost ground in Haryana politics. After all a large section of JJP workers are upset over the way Dushyant is still backing the Khattar government for his own personal sake.
However, it would be too early to predict whether Abhay would really succeed in his endeavour.
