Gopal Kumar Goyal | |
|---|---|
| MLA, Haryana Legislative Assembly | |
| In office 24 October 2019 –8 October 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Makhan Lal Singla |
| Succeeded by | Gokul Setia |
| Constituency | Sirsa |
| In office 2009–2014 | |
| Preceded by | Lachhman Dass Arora |
| Succeeded by | Makhan Lal Singla |
| Constituency | Sirsa |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 29 December 1965 Sirsa,Punjab (now Haryana),India |
| Political party | Haryana Lokhit Party |
| Spouse | Saraswati Devi |
| Children | 1 son and 2 daughters |
| Residence(s) | Sirsa,Haryana |
| Profession | Politician and businessman |
| Committees | Committee on Agriculture (Member) |
| Portfolio | Former Minister of State for Urban Local Bodies and Home (attached with CM), Former Minister of State for Industries &Commerce (attached with PWM) |
Gopal Kumar Goyal (born 29 December 1965),commonly known as Gopal Goyal Kanda,is a businessman and former member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly in India.
Kanda was elected to the legislative assembly of the state of Haryana in 2009 as an Independent representative for the Sirsa constituency. He served for some time as a minister in the Government of Haryana before resigning his post in the wake of legal charges being filed against him. He subsequently founded the Haryana Lokhit Party and stood unsuccessfully as a candidate in the state assembly elections of 2014. In 2019,he again stood as a candidate for elections. He was successful in his attempt and is now the MLA for Sirsa. [1]
Gopal Goyal Kanda was born on 29 December 1965 in Sirsa,Haryana,India,where his father,Murli Dhar Kanda,was a lawyer. [2] His ancestors were market traders and his surname,'Kanda',refers to the iron weights used by such people. [3] He lived with his family in a two-room apartment above their shop. [4] They had connections with an influential local politician,Om Prakash Chautala,and access to Tara Baba (died 2002),a reclusive local spiritual guru whom Kanda has subsequently done much to promote venerate. [2]
A school drop-out,according to The Times of India Kanda has been "Electrician,shoe shop owner,real estate broker,industrialist,car dealer,Tara Baba devotee,airline owner and politician". [4] Kanda's early attempts at business in Sirsa –a music shop and various ventures involving shoes –were unsuccessful. In 1997,he moved to Gurgaon to enter the real estate business and was able to exploit legal reforms to become a successful broker and,eventually,developer. According to Yuva Portal by 2005,he also had interests in designer clothing production and was an exporter, [2] [4] as well as owning a hotel in Gurgaon,a casino in Goa and various car dealerships. [2] He launched MDLR Airlines around 2006–2007,but it suspended operations in 2009,after accumulating losses and suffering a 2008 tax raid in which numerous employees were convicted. The airline became a part of Emirates Airlines in October 2010. [4] [5]
Kanda is married to Saraswati Devi and has a son and two daughters. He uses the surname "Kanda" for political and religious purposes,while for business purposes and on official papers his name is Gopal Kumar Goyal. [6]
Kanda returned to Sirsa in 2006 with an eye to entering politics. He leveraged the local status of the Chautala family and of Tara Baba,in memory of whom he built a large temple complex. [4] It was during the period after Chautala became Chief Minister in 1999 that Kanda's business career had taken off [2] but Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) party lost the 2005 general elections in Haryana. [7]
The relationship with the Chautala family soured when they refused to select Kanda as an INLD candidate in the 2009 state assembly elections,believing that he was incapable of winning. Although he was also friendly with significant members of the Indian National Congress (INC),that party,too,refused him a candidacy. Exploiting his religious affiliations with Tara Baba, [2] he contested instead as an independent and defeated the INLD candidate,Padam Jain,by a margin of 6521 votes. [3] He supported the INC,led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda,in the formation of a government. The INC had 40 legislators and needed at least another six to form the government,so Kanda acted as kingmaker and rallied a group of independents in support of Hooda. He was rewarded with a cabinet post and made Minister of State for Home in Haryana. [4] He had at that time ten criminal cases pending against him. [8]
When not bound by the Election Commission of India's Model Code of Conduct,which restricts certain activities during election periods,Kanda regularly provided his constituents with free medicines and access to medical services,along with food,water and school books. Supporters claim that Tara Baba declared him to be his spiritual heir. [9]
Kanda was arrested in 2012 and resigned from office in the home ministry in the Government of Haryana. [10] On 5 August 2012,Geetika Sharma,a former air hostess with the MDLR airline had committed suicide. She left two suicide notes. [11] accusing Kanda and an aide of harassment. [12] She also alleged that Kanda was "having an illicit relationship with another woman,Ankita,with whom he has a child". [13] Allegations have been made that before her suicide Kanda sent a letter to Emirates saying that she had been a poor employee and had defaulted on a loan,and her family said that he had sent her threatening e-mails using several identities. Kanda denied the allegations and stated that he had encouraged Sharma by sponsoring her on an MBA course. He also said "She was also made the chairman of the trust which managed an international school at Sirsa." [12]
Delhi Police took him in custody,with charges including abetting the suicide,criminal conspiracy and criminal intimidation,and sending false electronic messages. [10] [14] Haryana chief minister,Bhupinder Singh Hooda,said that his former minister not helping the police in the suicide probe was "unfair". [15]
On 15 February 2013,Geetika's mother,Anuradha Sharma also committed suicide. She chose the same method as her daughter and left a suicide note at the same place as her. [16]
On 4 March 2014,Kanda was granted bail after a charge of sexual exploitation was dropped by the Delhi High Court. [17] Both the police and Geetika Sharma's brother objected to the grant of bail,alleging that medical records had been forged,the freedom would enable witness interference,and that it could prejudice a future trial. [18] Kanda then sought judicial intervention to prevent media from reporting the case. [19] On 25 July 2023,Kanda along with the co-accused Aruna Chadha were acquitted by the Court. [20]
As leader of the Haryana Lokhit Party,which he had formed in May 2014, [21] Kanda contested the 2014 elections in Haryana. He lost to Makhan Lal Singla of the INLD, [22] despite his opponents acknowledging beforehand that his local popularity negated any potential ill effects from the Sharma case. [9]
In October 2016,with the Sharma case still unresolved,Kanda and his brother,Govind,were charged in relation to an investigation into alleged illegal property development in Sirsa. Police had been looking into the matter since 2009. [23] Kanda has had other brushes with the law,including a case from 2000 involving cheque bouncing that was still unresolved in 2014, [24] and a 2007 incident when he was discovered in the company of members of the criminal underworld. [3]
Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) is a political party based primarily in the Indian state of Haryana. It was initially founded as the Haryana Lok Dal (Rashtriya) by Devi Lal in 1996, who served as the Deputy Prime Minister of India.
Devi Lal, also known as Chaudhary Devi Lal, was an Indian statesman and politician who served as 6th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 1989 to 1990 and from 1990 to 1991. Lal emerged as farmer leader from the state of Haryana, and served as the Chief Minister of Haryana from 1977 to 1979 and then from 1987 to 1989. He was the founder of Indian National Lok Dal. He was popularly known as Tau, meaning uncle.
Om Prakash Chautala also known as O.P. Chautala is an Indian politician who has served as the 7th Chief Minister of Haryana from the Indian National Lok Dal. He is the son of 6th Deputy Prime Minister of India, Chaudhary Devi Lal. He holds the record for being the oldest prisoner of the Tihar Jail of Delhi, before his release in 2020. He was the chief minister of Haryana for record four times.
Sirsa is a city and a municipal council in Sirsa district in the westernmost region of the Indian state of Haryana, bordering Punjab and Rajasthan. It is located near to Thar desert. It is located 250 kilometres north-west of New Delhi and 260 kilometers south-west of state capital Chandigarh. Sirsa's nearest cities include Hisar, Fatehabad, Ellenabad, Bhadra, Nohar, Mandi Dabwali and Hanumangarh. Its history dates back to the time of the Mahabharata. At one time, the Sarasvati River flowed in this area.
Kuldeep Bishnoi is an Indian politician and a member of Bharatiya Janata Party. He served as fourth-time member of Haryana Legislative Assembly from Adampur in the Hisar (city) of Haryana. He was also a member of Congress Central Working Committee (CWC). Earlier in 2007, Bishnoi had founded a new party, Haryana Janhit Congress, a breakaway faction of Indian National Congress.
Ajay Singh Chautala is a former Indian MP and sports administrator. He is elder son of former Chief Minister of Haryana Om Prakash Chautala and father of former Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana Dushyant Chautala.
Haryana Janhit Congress was a state political party in the state of Haryana, India. It was started as a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress by former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal in 2007. The party forged an alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2014 parliamentary elections.
Ram Bilas Sharma is an Indian former Cabinet Minister in Bharatiya Janata Party's Government of Haryana, and former education minister and politician who has represented the Mahendragarh constituency as an MLA in the northern state of Haryana five times.
The Ruchika Girhotra case involves the molestation of 14-year-old Ruchika Girhotra in 1990 by the Inspector General of Police Shambu in Haryana, India. After she made a complaint, the victim, her family, and her friends were systematically harassed by the police leading to her eventual suicide. On 22 December 2009, after 19 years, 40 adjournments, and more than 400 hearings, the court finally pronounced Rathore guilty under Section 354 IPC (molestation) and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000. The CBI had opposed Rathore's plea and had sought an enhancement of his sentence from six months to the maximum of two years after his conviction. Rejecting his appeal against his conviction by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court, Chandigarh District Court on 25 May sentenced the disgraced former police official to one-and-a-half years of rigorous imprisonment, enhancing his earlier six-month sentence and immediately taken into custody and taken to the Burail prison. On 11 November 2010, the Supreme Court granted bail to S.P.S. Rathore on the condition that he remain in Chandigarh. Recently, the Supreme Court of India upheld Rathore's conviction in molestation case but restricted the punishment to six months' jail already served by him considering his age.
Madhosinghana (Madho Singhana) is a village in Sirsa tehsil of the Sirsa district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is a part of the Ellenabad constituency.
Abhay Singh Chautala is an Indian politician. He was a member of the Haryana Legislative Assembly from Ellenabad. He served as Leader of the Opposition in Haryana Legislative Assembly from 2014 to 2019. He has been elected to the Haryana Legislative Assembly for four terms since 2010. He served as the 10th president of Indian Olympic Association. He also served as president of the Boxing Federation of India. He is grandson of Devi Lal, former deputy prime minister of India. He is a member of the Indian National Lok Dal.
Elections in Haryana, which is a state in India, have been conducted since 1967 to elect the members of state-level Haryana Legislative Assembly and national-level Lok Sabha. There are 90 assembly constituencies and 10 Lok Sabha constituencies.
This is the alphabetical categorised list of statewide, regional and local political families involved in the politics and various elections of Haryana state of India at state and national level.
Dushyant Singh Chautala is an Indian politician who served as the 6th Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana from 2019 to 2024. He represented the Uchana Kalan constituency in Haryana Legislative Assembly from 2019 until 2024 and was sworn-in as Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana upon making an alliance with Bharatiya Janata Party after the 2019 Haryana Legislative Assembly election.
Manohar Lal Khattar is an Indian politician serving as the Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs in the central Modi government since June 2024. He is a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and served as the 10th Chief Minister of Haryana from 26 October 2014 till his resignation on 12 March 2024.
Legislative Assembly election was held in Haryana on 21 October 2019 to elect 90 members of the Haryana Legislative Assembly. The final voter turnout was recorded at 68.20%. The results were announced on 24 October 2019.
The Jannayak Janta Party, abbreviated as, JJP is an Indian state-level political party in Haryana, India. JJP is a recognized state political party. JJP was founded on 9 December 2018 by Dushyant Chautala with the ideology of Devi Lal, who served as Deputy Prime Minister of India.
Ellenabad is one of the 90 constituencies in the Haryana Legislative Assembly. Ellenabad is a part of Sirsa Lok Sabha constituency. Bharat Singh Beniwal is incumbent member of Haryana Legislative Assembly from Ellenabad since 2024.
The 2024 Haryana Legislative Assembly elections were held in Haryana on 5 October 2024 to elect all 90 members of the Haryana Legislative Assembly.
