Haryana Assembly Elections 2024 : Ex-CM Bansi Lal’s Grandchildren Fight Over Tosham Seat

Chandigarh: With the Congress fielding Anirudh Chaudhry, the grandson of the former chief minister late Bansi Lal, from Tosham assembly seat, the stage is set for a direct fight between him and his first cousin Shruti Chaudhry, Lal’s granddaughter, whose name has already been declared by BJP, from the said assembly segment.

While Anirudh is son of Ranbir Mahendra, the elder son of Lal, Shruti is daughter of Lal’s younger son Surender Singh; It is Anirudh’s first election.

It may be recalled that Shruti’s mother, Kiran Chaudhry, the widow of Surender Singh, and a four-time MLA from Tosham, had quit Congress and joined BJP in June this year; Kiran Chaudhry has recently been elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana.

Shruti herself was elected MP from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh Lok Sabha seat in 2009 on Congress ticket but lost to BJP’s Dharambir in the next two elections – 2014 and 2019. Bhiwani seat was represented by her father and grandfather multiple times in the past.

Anirudh, who claimed to be the political heir of his grandfather, on the other hand, held that after the death of his uncle Surender Singh, his grandfather had said that his elder son Ranbir and his grandson would carry the family legacy. Anirudh is said to be close to tall Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

Both Shruti and Anirudh had also recently held separate rallies to mark the 97^th birth anniversary of their grandfather; while she held the rally in Tosham village, Anirudh held the rally in the family's native Golagarh village. Tosham rally was also attended by Haryana chief minister Nayab Saini. She also claimed that her grandfather had announced that he would hand over the family’s political legacy to her.

Addressing the rally, Kiran Chaudhry said that she had faced difficulties in Congress after the demise of her husband, Surender Singh, in 2005 and Bhiwani faced discrimination during Hooda’s stint as chief minister. She told the gathering how she made rounds of the CM office with slips of recommendations of works to be done in her constituency but to no avail.

She went on to say that her father-in-law Bansi Lal too had to leave Congress and form his own outfit Haryana Vikas Party after 1991.