Don't lose hope, think of ways of coming out of crisis: INLD chief to workers

After the INLD faced a major drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls, party president Om Prakash Chautala Tuesday asked workers not to lose hope and think of ways and means of coming out of the present crisis.

While reaching out to the party workers, the former Haryana chief minister said he empathised with them over the "sorry state of affairs" which the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) currently finds itself in and the severe drubbing it had to face on all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Chautala, who is serving a jail sentence in connection with the teachers recruitment scam in Haryana, was released on furlough on Tuesday, a party statement said here.

The INLD chief said he would soon meet all party workers to hear their voices about the present state of affairs of the party and the state of Haryana.

He asked them "not to lose hope and think of the ways and means of coming out of this crisis and rebuild the party".

Chautala said he will meet all the workers, including those who might have left the party for some reason.

It will be his effort to have a "heart-to-heart talk" with as many of them as possible, listen to their grievances, pay heed to their suggestions and then in discussion with them chalk out a programme for rebuilding the party, the statement quoting him said.

He reminded INLD workers that they represented the farming community, rural and working class "and cannot afford to allow the unity of these classes to be threatened".

After a vertical split in the party last year, following feud in the Chautala family, INLD's political graph in Haryana has further nosedived.

The party had fielded its candidates on all the 10 Lok Sabha seats in Haryana, but they lost their security deposits. Even its sitting MP from Sirsa Charanjeet Singh Rori lost.

Not only the INLD lost the polls, its vote share dropped to a poor 1.89 per cent.

The INLD, which had won two seats in 2014, had then increased its vote share to 24.4 per cent from 15.78 per cent in 2009 when it lost all the five seats it contested.

The INLD, founded by late deputy prime minister Devi Lal has been out of power in Haryana for over 14 years now.