UCHANA KALAN: Haryana’s Uchana Kalan, a Jat-dominated constituency and major battleground for the October 5 assembly polls, will witness the clash of two prominent political families with well-known rivalry — former deputy PM Devi Lal’s great-grandson Dushyant Singh Chautala and former Union minister Birender Singh’s son Brijendra Singh.
Former Haryana deputy chief minister and Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) leader Dushyant Singh Chautala, the sitting MLA from the constituency, is seeking a re-election. He is the grandson of former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala. Up against Dushyant Chautala is bureaucrat-turned-politician and Congress candidate Brijendra Singh. He and his father Birender Singh quit the BJP earlier this year and joined the Congress.
The Uchana Kalan assembly constituency falls in the Jind district, considered the state’s political heartland. Birender Singh, the grandson of farmer leader Sir Chhotu Ram, had joined the BJP ahead of the Haryana polls in 2014, snapping his over four-decade-old ties with the Congress. Before Dushyant Chautala won the Uchana Kalan assembly seat, it was considered a bastion of the Birender Singh family. The former Union minister himself was a five-time MLA from the constituency.
His son Brijendra Singh was a BJP MP from Hisar before he quit the party. In 2019, Dushyant Chautala lost the election to the Hisar parliamentary seat to him. Brijendra Singh, however, does not see Dushyant Chautala as his main political opponent from Uchana Kalan. “The main contest is with the BJP,” he asserted.
The ruling BJP in the state has named Devender Chatar Bhuj Attri as its candidate for the Uchana Kalan seat. Dushyant Chautala won the seat in 2019, defeating Brijendra’s mother Prem Lata Singh by over 47,000 votes. Prem Lata had defeated Chautala in 2014. On his campaign trail, Brijendra Singh exuded confidence that the Congress would win the Haryana assembly polls with a big mandate and promised to work hard for a bright future of this constituency, saying, “There is a strong wave in favour of the Congress.” Brijendra Singh (52) holds a master’s degree in Public Policy and Management from Kings College in London. Before joining politics more than five years ago, he took voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service after working for over 20 years.
JJP’s Dushyant Chautala took swipes at his political rivals during his rallies, saying, “Uchana understands who is its own.” The 36-year-old said there is a high chance of a triangular contest in Haryana. Referring to its party symbol, he said it is the JJP’s ‘key’ which will open the lock of the Haryana assembly.
He minced no words in hitting out at his party’s former ally BJP, saying the people of Haryana want to show the party the way out. Dushyant, who holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from California State University, also claimed that the “alliance” between the BJP and the Indian National Lok Dal is visible in the elections as they are picking candidates to benefit each other.
The JJP leader promised 50 per cent reservation to women in teaching jobs in government institutions and a Rs 21,000 monthly honorarium for Anganwadi and Accredited Social Health Activists. The former MP Ajay Singh Chautala-led JJP and the Chandra Shekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) are jointly contesting the Haryana assembly polls.
BJP candidate Devender Attri said there will be a two-way contest in the Uchana Kalan constituency and that the “lotus” will bloom from here. “We are fighting these polls strongly,” Attri told PTI. The 44-year-old BJP candidate, who is contesting the assembly election for the first time, said he has been serving the people of the area for the last 13 years.
He said canal water is a major issue in this constituency. “There is no government college in Uchana and there is no sports stadium here,” he added. Polling for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana will be held on October 5 and votes will be counted on October 8.
