State NCP chief quits party; may join BJP or INLD

State president of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Chaudhary Ved Pal on Thursday resigned from the party in protest against the 'indifferent' attitude of the party brass towards Haryana.

Pal, who remained deputy speaker of Haryana Vidhan Sabha from 1982-86, told Hindustan Times on Thursday evening that he might join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or the Indian Naitonal Lok Dal (INLD) as talks with both the parties were on.

Pal said that top NCP leaders, including its national president Sharad Pawar, had been overlooking the Haryana unit and never visited the state in the last five years.

"It had become suffocating to work under the given situations. Our team of state leaders will meet in Karnal on March 2 and a decision will be taken unanimously on the future course of action," said the 74-year-old Pal.

A veteran Haryana politician, Pal is better known as a political turncoat who maintained close relationship with leaders of various parties.

According to sources, Pal had first unsuccessfully contested as a Jan Sangh candidate from Indri in 1968.

Later, he joined the Congress and got elected from Ghraunda, Karnal, in 1982.

Then he was considered as a close confidant of then Congress chief minister Bhajan Lal and became the deputy speaker.

Later, he switched his loyalty to the rebel Congress leader Bansi Lal and joined his Haryana Vikas Party.

He lost the 1996 assembly elections as a HVP candidate but owing to his proximity with Bansi Lal, he was appointed chairman of Haryana marketing board from 1996-99.

Old timers recall him as an upright politician who had started as a panchayat secretary.

Later, he completed law and remained assistant to eminent lawyer late Chiranji Lal, who represented the Congress four times from the Karnal parliamentary constituency.

After the then Congress leader Sharad Pawar left the party against the Congress' proposal to make Sonia Gandhi prime minister, Pal had joined Pawar's political outfit in 1999 and was appointed head of the state unit.

A resident of Kandrauli village in Radaour block of Yamunanagar, Pal's younger brother Pritam Pal is Haryana's lokayukta.