Sampat Singh returns to INLD, calls for strong alternative to BJP in Haryana

CHANDIGARH: In a significant political development, senior Haryana leader and former finance minister Sampat Singh rejoined the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) on Tuesday, marking his return to the party after 16 years.

He joined the party at the party’s Chandigarh office in the presence of INLD state president Rampal Majra and party chief Abhay Singh Chautala, who hailed it as a “historic day” for the party. In his address after joining the party, Sampat Singh said it felt like “coming home” to the party founded by late deputy prime minister Chaudhary Devi Lal, under whom he served as finance minister. “The same platform that Chaudhary Devi Lal and Om Prakash Chautala once gave me has again given me the opportunity to serve. My dream is to make INLD a strong alternative to the BJP in Haryana,” he said. Singh, who quit INLD to join Congress in 2009, expressed regret over the move, calling it “the worst decision” of his political career. “I wasted 16 years in Congress. The party sidelined me, and several leaders tried to push me out of politics,” he said, launching a scathing attack on former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He alleged that Hooda manipulated the 2016 Rajya Sabha polls and indulged in “vote theft” through “pen-swapping tactics.”

Targeting both national parties, Singh accused the BJP govt of failing on governance, particularly in education and healthcare. “Privatisation means govt failure. Colleges are shutting down, hospitals lack facilities, and even free treatment in private hospitals has stopped,” he said, adding that Haryana’s youth “are being forced to go abroad and face hardships there.” Singh also criticised Congress for neglecting farmers and backward communities.

“For four months, farmers’ homes and fields have been flooded, but neither BJP nor Congress has done anything.

Both are two sides of the same coin,” he said. Welcoming Singh’s return, Abhay Singh Chautala announced his appointment as INLD’s National Patron, praising his long association with the party and his administrative experience. “Prof Sampat Singh’s decision to return strengthens the INLD and carries forward Chaudhary Devi Lal’s ideology. Before I entered politics, he was already a respected minister and legislator,” Chautala said.