Chandigarh, September 8
Another son will rise on the political horizon of Haryana when Mr Deepender Singh Hooda will file his nomination papers for the Rohtak Lok Sabha byelection on September 10 as the Congress candidate.
Mr Deepender Singh will be contesting the seat vacated by his father, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, after he became the Chief Minister of Haryana.
With Mr Deepender Singh’s entry into politics, he will join the ranks of the sons of Mr Bansi Lal, Mr Bhajan Lal and Mr Om Prakash Chautala, all former Chief Ministers of the state. Now almost all prominent politicians of Haryana have fielded their sons and wards in politics, leaving no scope for each blaming the other for promoting “parivarwad”. The Finance Minister, Mr Birender Singh, is perhaps the sole exception, whose son, Mr Brijendra Singh, is a career bureaucrat. He is posted as the Deputy Commissioner of Panchkula.
The younger Hooda’s candidature was cleared by the AICC President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, today in Delhi and was announced by the party general secretary, Mrs Ambika Soni.
Mr Deepender Singh will be the fourth generation of his family to join politics. His great grandfather, Matu Ram, fought the elections from Rohtak as a candidate of the Swaraj Party of Moti Lal Nehru in 1923. His grandfather, Mr Ranbir Singh, was a member of the Constituent Assembly in 1947. He had been either an MP or an MLA seven times. His father (Mr Bhupinder Singh) had been four-time MP from Rohtak and is now the Chief Minister of Haryana.
After doing his Bachelor of
Technology Engineering from the Birla Institute of Textiles, Bhiwani, the 27-year-old Deepender did his MBA(Concentrations in strategy, economics and marketing) from the Kelley School of Business of Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. For the past two years he had been working as Senior Manager (Airline Strategy and Distribution Consulting) with Sabre Holdings, a subsidiary of American Airlines.
A soft-spoken Deepender was lately involved in an unsavoury episode when his estranged wife dragged him to court, accusing him of demanding dowry. However, the court dismissed the case even before the charges were framed as it did not find any merit in the accusation.
