After drubbing in Lok Sabha polls, INLD's Haryana chief resigns

A day after his party suffered a humiliating defeat on all 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, the opposition Indian National Lok Dal's state unit president Ashok Arora resigned from the post on Friday.

In his resignation letter to party supremo and former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, Arora said he was resigning as the state unit chief in view of the severe drubbing the party received at the hustings.

"I take the responsibility of the party's poor show in the Lok Sabha polls and I resign from my post on moral grounds," Arora wrote to Chautala.

The ruling BJP swept all the 10 seats in Haryana, while INLD was decimated and its candidates lost security deposits.

The INLD saw its vote share plunge to 1.89 per cent from 24.4 per cent in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The INLD, which was once the main opposition party in Haryana, has seen its political graph slide after a vertical split in the party last year following a feud in the Chautala family.

The party had subsequently been stung by desertions and suffered a heavy bypoll defeat when it failed to hold on to the Jind Assembly seat earlier this year.

A few of the party's sitting MLAs had joined the BJP recently. A few of the party's former legislators had also switched over to the ruling party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Four INLD MLAs too switched sides and announced their support to the Jannayak Janata Party, which was formed after the split in the INLD last year.

The INLD, founded by late deputy prime minister Devi Lal and headed by former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, has been out of power in Haryana for over 14 years now.