Former Haryana chief parliamentary secretary and three-time MLA Rampal Majra, a close aide of late Chaudhary Devi Lal, on March 20 returned to Indian National Lok Dal’s fold after over five years to take over party’s reins as a State president. He joined the party three weeks after the INLD State president Nafe Singh Rathee was shot dead in Bahadurgarh.
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Mr. Majra joined the Bharatiya Janta Party in 2019 following differences with Chautalas after around four decades of his political career with Chaudhary Devi Lal. He, however, quit the BJP in 2021 in support of the farmers agitation against the three farm laws.
Though Mr. Majra had announced to stay away from electoral politics, clamour grew among INLD cadres for his appoint as party’s State president after the murder of Rathee.
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Speaking at a function in Chandigarh to mark the formal joining of Mr. Majra, INLD secretary general and lone MLA Abhay Chautala said he had worked with Chaudhary Devi Lal and party’s supremo Om Prakash Chautala with a dedication to strengthening the party but had become inactive for some time. Mr. Chautala said the party cadres wanted him to return to INLD and now we would work under his leadership.
Mr. Majra said he would work in coordination with the old and new party workers to fulfil his responsibility and try to bring back those who had left the party. “It is our own house. I will try to strengthen it,” said Mr. Majra, about his efforts to revive the INLD. He added that the party would contest all the ten Lok Sabha seats.
Mr. Majra attacked the BJP government in Haryana on the recent overhaul of the cabinet terming the new Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini as a “dummy” and saying that the party could not blunt anti-incumbency by mere changing the faces.
In his efforts to revive the INLD after the split in 2018 pushed it to political oblivion in Haryana politics, Mr. Chautala carried out a “padyatra” last year and has also reached out to old party workers to bring them back to its fold.