Haryana polls: Grandchildren fight for Bansi Lal's legacy in Tosham

Chandigarh: It’s a direct battle between the grandchildren of one of Haryana’s tallest leaders, the late Bansi Lal, for the family citadel Tosham Assembly constituency in Haryana’s Bhiwani district.

The ballot battle is largely between Congress turncoat and BJP’s Shruti Choudhry, whose mother Kiran Choudhry won this seat four straight times from 2005 bypoll, and Congress and political greenhorn Anirudh Chaudhary, a son of Ranbir Mahendra, former President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), making the constituency one of the high-profile ones.

Shruti Choudhry and Anirudh Chaudhary are grandchildren of the politically influential Jat family of Lal, who was the Chief Minister three times and former defence minister, the first being in 1968 and the last from 1996 to 1999.

While Shruti Choudhry's mother Kiran Choudhry, now a BJP member in the Upper House, is Bansi Lal’s daughter-in-law, Anirudh Chaudhary's father Mahendra, is his estranged son.

Political observers say from Tosham, from where Lal and his clan have won nine out of 12 Assembly polls, the third generation is trying to save the family legacy by contesting as Congress and BJP nominees.

Out of the 11 elections that the family contested, Bansi Lal won thrice (1972, 1991 and 1996), his son Surender Singh twice (1982 and 2005) and his daughter-in-law Kiran Choudhry four times (2005 bypoll necessitated after the death of her husband and then won the Assembly polls in 2009, 2014 and 2019 on Congress’ ticket). Basi Lal floated the Haryana Vikas Party after parting ways with the Congress in 1996.

Kiran Choudhry and her daughter Shruti Choudhry, a former member of Parliament from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh from 2009-2014 but lost the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019, joined the BJP in June.

In her resignation letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Kiran Choudhry wrote, "I hereby tender my resignation from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress…In Haryana, I also represent the legacy of late Chaudhary Bansi Lal, the architect of modern Haryana and my late husband Surender Singh.”

However, Anirudh Chaudhary is a former treasurer of the BCCI.

This is the second time that Bansi Lal's clan is fighting elections against each other. In 1998, Shruti Choudhry’s father Surender Singh defeated Anirudh’s father, Ranbir Singh, from the Bhiwani Lok Sabha seat. At that time, Surender Singh contested as the Haryana Vikas Party candidate, while Ranbir Singh was a Congress nominee.

As per caste mathematics, the Jats comprise the highest number of voters in the Tosham constituency and a volatile mix of other castes -- Yadavs, the second prominent, followed by Brahmins, Gujars, Mahajans and Punjabis.

As per BJP’s social engineering to woo the politically significant Jat community, who constitute 25 per of the state’s population, after losing half of the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the recently held general elections, the induction of a member of the Lal family is seen as an attempt to win over the landowning community Jats who are apprehensive of their demands, including the legal guarantee for purchase of all crops on the minimum support price (MSP) and farm loan waiver.

“The Congress is banking largely on Jat votes while BJP on non-Jat votes. Now candidates of both the parties belong to the Jat community, it is the personal charisma that matters most in Tosham,” a political analyst told IANS.

While voters in the state are overall happy with the government’s work, those in the state’s prominent Jat belt -- Hisar, Bhiwani, Mahendragarh, Rohtak, Sonipat, Jind, Jhajjar and Kaithal -- may vote for change of the government as the farming community in these districts remains apprehensive despite the government announcing procuring all crops on the MSP in the run-up to the polls.

In 2019, the BJP managed to form a government in Haryana after stitching an alliance with the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). The BJP had 40 members in the 90-strong Assembly. With the support of 10 JJP legislators, the BJP formed a government for a second time.

In 2014, the party won 47 seats with a comfortable majority.

From Tosham, if the contest remains straight between the Congress and the BJP, an observer adds, there will be both a win and defeat of the architect of modern Haryana.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at [email protected])