Ajay Chautala invites MPs, MLAs for meeting on Nov 17 in Jind

INLD Secretary General Ajay Singh Chautala invited former MPs, MLAs and other office bearers Monday for a meeting in Jind on November 17.

Chautala sent a letter, which does not mention any agenda of the meeting and states that "an invitation is hereby given for the Haryana State Body meeting of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD)".

"All the state body office bearers/members, special invitees, executive members, sitting and former MPs and MLAs, presidents of the district units, state presidents and district conveners of all the Cells of the party and its bodies may kindly make it convenient to attend the State Body general meeting," wrote Chautala, who is also a former MP.

The letter, inviting various party functionaries for the Jind meet, comes in the midst of a widening rift in the Chautala family.

When asked if any important decision was likely to be taken by him in the meeting on November 17, Chautala told reporters in Delhi on Monday that "all colleagues will sit and decide".

In an apparent bid to arrest the widening rift, Ajay Singh Chautala and his younger brother Abhay Singh Chautala, who is Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, had a meeting in Delhi on Sunday.

To a question, Ajay Singh Chautala did not rule out more meetings with his younger brother in the coming days in a bid to put an end to the widening rift, saying, "he is dear to me, we will meet everyday".

He indicated that he was likely to meet former Punjab chief minister ParkashSingh Badal in Chandigarh this week.

While Ajay Singh Chautala's sonDigvijay Chautala had Sunday ruled out the possibility of any mediation by the Akali Dal patriarch to arrest the feud within the INLD and Chautala family.

Badals and Chautalas have shared close family ties over several decades.

On Saturday, HisarMP Dushyant Chautala had refused to accept his expulsion and that of his brother Digvijay Chautala from the INLD, claiming that the party's national executive had not met and no sack order was issued by president Om Prakash Chautala.

On November 2, an INLD press release quoting their grandfather Om Prakash Chautala had announced the expulsion of the two brothers following an inquiry which found them guilty of indiscipline.

The two leaders were suspended after their supporters allegedly shouted slogans at an INLD rally in Gohana, appearing to target Abhay Chautala.

A day after Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala and his brother brother Digvijay Chautala refused to accept their expulsions from the INLD amid a family feud, their mother and Dabwali MLA Naina Chautala had Sunday attacked their detractors, saying late Devi Lal nurtured the party but some "15-odd people are eating it like termites".