The last of Haryana’s politically influential Lals, former chief minister Bhajan Lal, passed away in Hisar on Friday, aged 80, after suffering a heart attack while at his family home.
Family sources said the octogenarian politician, ailing for the past several months, was shifted to a private hospital after he collapsed Friday afternoon. Doctors however failed to revive him.
Bhajan Lal was Haryana’s chief minister thrice between 1979 and 1996. In between he had also served in Rajiv Gandhi’s Cabinet at the Centre with the twin portfolios of agriculture and environment and forests. He was born on October 6, 1930 at Koranwali village in Bahawalpur (now in Pakistan).
Originally a petty trader who started out as a panch and later sarpanch of his adopted post-Partition village, Adampur (Hisar), Bhajan Lal eventually rose to become Haryana’s most powerful non-jat politician.
He made a dramatic entry into the Congress in 1979 when he crossed the floor of the Assembly with 37 legislators to become chief minister for the first time. Notorious for his almost legendary ability to engineer defections, he had virtually pioneered “aaya ram gaya ram” politics in the country, which eventually led to the enactment of the anti-defection law. Bhajan Lal returned twice as chief minister — in 1982 and 1991.
He also led the Congress to victory in the state in 2005 but was not made CM amid sharp divisions in the party’s senior leadership. Evidently feeling ignored, he joined his younger son and political heir Kuldeep Bishnoi to float the Haryana Janhit Congress, a rebel group largely comprising disgruntled Congress leaders.
He contested and won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections as the new party’s candidate from Hisar, easily decimating the formidable twin challenge posed by Prof. Sampat Singh of the Indian National Lok Dal and Jai Prakash of the Congress.
Bhajan Lal is survived by wife Jasma Devi and two sons, Chander Mohan and Kuldeep Bishnoi. His cremation will be at Mandi Adampur on Saturday, sources in the Bishnoi household said.