INLD expels Ajay Chautala

Accused of weakening party; brother says he is ‘playing into hands of BJP, Cong.'

Ajay Chautala.

The Indian National Lok Dal on Wednesday expelled its secretary general and former Member of Parliament Ajay Chautala from the party. INLD's Haryana president Ashok Arora announced the expulsion here.

“The party’s national president, Om Prakash Chautala, has not only removed Mr. Ajay Chautala from the office of the secretary general of the State INLD but also expelled him from the primary membership of the party,” said Mr. Arora at a press conference.

“Mr. Ajay Chautala has been involved in activities that vitiated the party's discipline and weakened its cohesiveness, unity and integrity,” he said.

Parallel organisation

Mr. Arora said that the INLD's national president felt that Mr. Ajay Chautala had been trying to run a parallel party organisation by going beyond his powers and calling an unauthorised meeting at Jind on November 17.

“Any general or special meeting of the State executive shall not be convened without prior written approval of the [INLD's] national president. Any violation thereof shall invite disciplinary action,” he added.

Amid the festering "family feud", Leader of the Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala on Wednesday accused his elder brother, Mr. Ajay Chautala, and his two sons — Dushyant Chautala and Digvijay Singh — of playing into the hands of the BJP and the Congress to weaken the INLD.

"I want to ask, ‘Have you ever heard Ajay Chautala or any of his family members uttering a single word against opponents Congress and BJP in recent weeks?’ Their aim is not to oust the BJP or the Congress from power; they are playing into their hands which want to weaken and break the INLD,” he told media persons.

Mr. Abhay Chautala addressed the press conference flanked by nine of his party MLAs, two MPs, besides Mr. Arora and other State unit leaders.

On the "family feud", Mr. Abhay Chautala said he never nourished political ambitions but had also never shirked from any duty assigned to him by Mr. Om Prakash Chautala. “I worked at the grassroots level and contested and won elections against heavy odds when asked to do so,” he said, adding that he had been working much before Mr. Ajay Chautala, "who had confined himself to the politics of Rajasthan" and entered Haryana politics to contest the Lok Sabha election from Bhiwani.

‘Undemocratic decision’

Reacting to his expulsion, Mr. Ajay Chautala said the decision had been taken in an undemocratic manner. “Few people in the party are attempting to stamp their authority through back door,” he said.

(With PTI inputs)