Devi Lal’s birth anniv : Stage set for INLD’S Jind rally today
ROHTAK: The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) party is all geared up for the ‘Samman Diwas Samaroh’ to be organised in Jind on Saturday to mark the 108th birth anniversary of late Devi Lal.
Ahead of the event, INLD general secretary Abhay Singh Chautala visited the venue to take stock of the arrangements.
The rally is said to be a special one as INLD supremo and former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala will address party workers in the state-wide rally for the first time after completing his jail term in the junior basic teachers’ (JBT) recruitment scam.
INLD is organising a rally on Devi Lal anniversary after two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Abhay Chautala said, “Former prime minister HD Devegowda, former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, ex-uttar Pradesh CM Mulayam Singh Yadav, former Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah and many other leaders will attend the rally and form a third front to fight the BJP and Congress.”
“In the Jind rally, we will felicitate Olympics and Paralympics medallists. We have also invited families of farmers who have sacrificed their lives during the ongoing farm agitation against Centre’s three farm laws. We will provide jobs to one member of each deceased farmer’s family under Choudhary Devi Trust,” he added. The 87-year-old INLD supremo, his daughter-in-law Sunaina Chautala, and grandsons Arjun and Karan Chautala have leave no stone unturned to make the Jind rally a success in the absence of Abhay, who was on bed rest due to back ache.
OP Chautala had interacted with party workers at districtlevel meetings, while his grandsons and the party’s woman face Sunaina had visited villages across state to urge people to attend the rally so that they can show their political strength after the senior Chautala’s release.
INLD insiders said Abhay had telephonically made conversations with booth-level workers and assigned them duties for the rally. Party’s women wing general secretary Sunaina said women will turn up in large numbers to pay tributes to Devi Lal and farmers who sacrificed their lives during the year-long farm stir.
Meanwhile, INLD’S splinter group JJP will install a 48-feet high statue of Devi Lal on his birth anniversary on the Delhimumbai highway in Nuh.
The fissures in Haryana’s oldest and the then principal Opposition party INLD had come out during a ‘Samman Divas’ rally at Sonepat’s Gohana on October 7, 2018, when supporters of the then Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala had hooted his uncle Abhay and had not allowed him to complete his speech in the presence of party president OP Chautala.
INLD has decided to hold the rally in its old bastion Jind, which is also the epicentre of the farmers’ agitation. The local farming community has a lot of anger towards deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala.