Battle between three political dynasties

HISAR: A dynastic battle was underway in Hisar, as the Lok Sabha seat recorded a 70.63% voter turnout on Sunday, as per figures provided by the Election Commission of India (ECI)’S Voter Turnout app. All 10 seats in the state went to polls in the penultimate phase on May 12.

The scions of three political families, two of who made their poll debut, were in the fray: sitting MP Dushyant Chautala — the great grandson of Chaudhary Devi Lal, a former deputy prime minister; Brijendra Singh, the son of Union minister Birender Singh and great grandson of farmer leader Chhotu Ram; and Bhavya Bishnoi, the grandson of former chief minister Bhajan Lal.

At 46, Singh recently quit the Indian Administrative Service to take the poll plunge on a BJP ticket. Bishnoi, 26, an Oxford graduate fought on a Congress ticket. The youngest MP in the 16th Lok Sabha, Chautala, 31, won the 2014 election on the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) ticket. He is the grandson of former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, who is currently in prison due to an employmentrelated scam with older son, Ajay Chautala (Dushyant’s father). Chautala was expelled from the party last year and floated the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) together with his father and brother, Digvijay.

The Jats are the dominant caste in Hisar constituency with more than one-third (600,000 votes). Chautala and Singh and INLD’S Suresh Koth, a Jat farmer activist, vied for the community’s votes.