End of road, Chautala comes to end of script

Inld president Om Prakash Chautala was unusually laconic today. And a trifle apologetic, a departure from his pre-election rhetoric against the Congress. Nothing seemed to have worked — the 50,000 developmental works, which were his claim to fame, last-minute rallies to woo different sections of the society, not even bullying of the babus.

‘‘People have voted against us. I will obey their verdict and sit in the Opposition. We will support the government if it does good for the people,’’ was all he had to say in a brief interaction with the media. The earlier Chautala — ‘‘Paanch March ko isi Governor se Kurukshetra mein shapath grahan karoonga’’ — was not to be seen.

The former chief minister would not even venture criticism of the future government by his rivals who have promised action on a chargesheet presented to the Governor. ‘‘Nai sarkar achha kam kargi to hum use support karenge,’’ he said.

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Nor was he ready for a post-mortem of the party performance. ‘‘We will go to the public again and try to ascertain the reasons for defeat,’’ he said, turning down further queries.

Principal secretary and confidant Birbal Das Dhalia sat beside him, taking in updates. Along with them were chief secretary Sunil Ahuja and DGP A.S. Bhatotia. ‘‘No partyman has come here since morning,’’ said a security personnel at the CMO.