Former Haryana Chief Minister OP Chautala is serving a 10-year sentence in Tihar jail.
Highlights
- National Institute of Open Schooling says OP Chautala took Class 10 exams
- His elections affidavits for 2005, 2009 elections also not accurate
- Chautala, 82, is serving a 10-year sentence in Delhi's Tihar jail
At 82, Haryana's former Chief Minister
Om Prakash Chautala did sit for a school test. But he is nowhere close to completing school as son Abhay Chautala had declared this week.
The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has said Mr Chautala had appeared for Class 10, and not class 12 exams held last month. And there is no indication how the veteran politician had performed as the exam results were still to be announced.
In Tihar jail for picking bribes to recruit teachers, OP Chautala has been behind bars for a few years after the Supreme Court ordered him to serve his jail term in 2015 for the scam that he had pulled off as Haryana Chief Minister in 2000. He had recently got out on parole on medical grounds but was sent back to jail by the
high court in March, according to PTI, after the court concluded he had feigned illness.
Last week, son Abhay Chautala, also secretary general of the Indian National Lok Dal, told reporters how his father had returned to jail early to sit for the examination. Mr Chautala had gone on to declare the veteran politician had cleared the Class 12 exam with first division.
According to PTI, documents, however, reveal that the former Chief Minister had appeared for class X exams at Delhi's Tihar jail from April 6 to April 24, during which he appeared for social sciences, science and technology, Hindi, Indian culture and heritage and business studies examinations.
But the claim, which has since then turned out to be inaccurate, has spawned another controversy over the election affidavits that OP Chautala had been filing.
In his affidavit filed for the 2005 assembly election, the INLD leader had certified that he was an under-matric, implying that he was yet to clear his Class 10 exam. In another election affidavit filed in 2009, Mr Chautala claimed he had cleared Class 10 from Sangaria, a city in north Rajasthan's Hanumangarh district.
"It does not matter much whether he appeared in class X or XII," Abhay Chautala had said, talking about how his father had to drop out of school to "educate his younger siblings" since grandfather Devi Lal was busy with politics. Later, he himself entered politics and found little time to pursue his studies," Abhay was quoted by news agency PTI.