Former Haryana Chief Minister and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) chief Om Prakash Chautala passed away on Friday (December 20). The Jat-farmer leader, who shaped Haryana's politics, was 89. Chautala, a five-time Haryana CM and seven-time MLA, spent over a decade in Delhi's Tihar Jail. Though Chautala was among the inmates released during the Covid pandemic in 2021 to avoid overcrowding, he was jailed in another case in 2022. That is when the five-term CM, then 87, earned the distinction of being the oldest inmate of Tihar Jail.
The jailing of OP Chautala and his son Ajay in a teacher-recruitment scam was a mighty fall for leaders of the family of Chaudhary Devi Lal, a former Deputy Prime Minister of India and respected Jat leader.
Chautala served as the Chief Minister of Haryana from December 1989 to May 1990, from 12 July 1990 to 17 July 1990, and from 22 March 1991 to 6 April 1991 and, finally, from 24 July 1999 to 5 March 2005.
He was the oldest of around 19,000 inmates living in Tihar. He was convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment by a CBI court for a disproportionate assets case in 2022. The court had even imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on him.
According to these prison records, he was one of the seven prisoners above the age of 80 in Tihar. Until his conviction, an 85-year-old man who had been convicted of murder was the oldest in Tihar.
He was assigned a bed as all people above the age of 70 are.
This is after a New Delhi court sentenced Chautala and his son Ajay Singh Chautala to 10 years' imprisonment in 2013. Chautala was found guilty of illegally recruiting over 3,000 unqualified teachers in the Junior Basic Teachers (JBT) recruitment scam in 1999-2000.
He was released from Tihar in February 2021 after serving nine and a half years of a 10-year prison term. He was released on account of the pandemic to avoid overcrowding in Tihar.
When Chautala's sentence was announced in 2013, thousands of INLD supporters had gathered outside the court and clashed with the police. Nearly 4,000 INLD supporters had gathered outside the court with stones and petrol bombs.
This was after the Haryana-Delhi border had been sealed by the police. Finally, the police had to lathi-charge them.
Chautala was in hospital at the time but his plea for leniency on account of old age. The court said they had tried to deprive many of their constitutional rights.
Chautala has two sons and three daughters, including Ajay Singh Chautala and Abhay Singh Chautala.
His son, Abhay Singh Chautala, is a Member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly from the Ellenabad constituency and has served as the Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Legislative Assembly. Another son, Ajay Singh Chautala, has also been active in Haryana politics.
Chautala's grandson, Dushyant Chautala, was the Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana. He is also a former Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from the Hisar constituency.
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