A DYNASTIC DIN

The fragmented Chautala brood fights over his Jat legacy, but it’s a grim hedge against irrelevance

- By Anilesh S. Mahajan

REMINISCENT OF THE competing claims on Bal Thackeray by the two Shiv Senas, a dangal is unfolding in Haryana’s heartland. At stake is a face—that of Jat patriarch Om Prakash Chautala. It’s not even been six months since the ex-CM’s demise. But just like farmland gets fragmented as families grow and drift apart, the son of the iconic Devi Lal has become the subject of a family feud: on who gets to use his turbaned visage as a heraldic emblem.