5 from Chautala village make it to state legislature

Five candidates who hail from Chautala village and represent different parties have registered victories in the assembly elections, keeping intact the Devi Lal legacy in Haryana politics.

While two of them belong to the JJP, one each was elected on the symbol of the INLD and the Congress.

One candidate was elected as an independent.

Chautala is a village in Dabwali subdivision of Sirsa on the Haryana-Rajasthan border, to which former deputy prime minister Devi Lal and ex-chief minister Om Prakash Chautala belong.

O P Chautala is currently lodged in the Tihar, along with his son Ajay Singh, following a conviction in a teacher recruitment scam.

In the assembly elections, the results of which were declared on Thursday, Om Prakash Chautala's younger son Abhay Chautala made a hattrick from his traditional Ellenabad assembly seat, beating Pawan Beniwal of the BJP.

Abhay was the lone candidate of the Indian National Lok Dal who romped home from his traditional bastion even as his party was decimated in the polls.

Chautala's grandson Dushyant Chautala, who floated the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) following a feud in the family last year, defeated BJP's Prem Lata, the wife of former Union minister Birender Singh, from Uchana Kalan by a margin of 47,452 votes.

Dushyant is the elder son of jailed leader Ajay Singh Chautala.

JJP's Naina Singh Chautala, who is the mother of Dushyant and wife of Ajay Chautala, won from Badhra, defeating Congress' Ranbir Singh Mahendra, a former BCCI president, by 13,704 seats.

Ranjit Singh Chautala, brother of O P Chautala and son of Devi Lal, won as an Independent from Rania, defeating Gobind Kanda by a margin of 19,431 votes.

Ranjit had earlier unsuccessfully contested on the Congress ticket.

After the denial of candidature by the Congress, Ranjit entered the fray as an independent.

Congress nominee Amit Sihag, who also belongs to the Devi Lal clan, beat BJP's Aditya, who is the grandson of Devi Lal, by a margin of 15,647 votes from Dabwali.

Sihag's father Dr KV Singh is the uncle of Ajay and Abhay Chautala.