A man in a grey safari suit, who does not want to be named, relaxes on a sofa in a visitors’ room at the residence of Haryana Industries and Commerce Minister Rao Narbir in Gurugram’s Civil Lines. This is an older part of Delhi’s suburb that has government offices and low-rise buildings. Across National Highway 48, the artery that connects Delhi to Gurugram, are shiny high-rise corporate offices and gated condominiums.
The bespectacled man says, “Rao Narbir and Inderjit Singh are the only two mass Ahir leaders in Haryana. In any village in south Haryana, there are two factions among the Ahirs, each supporting one of them.” He is waiting for an audience with Narbir.
On the wall behind the sofa hangs a larger-than-life photograph of Narbir, 64, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah sitting across from each other having a one-on-one conversation. A collage on the opposite wall captures the political journey of Narbir’s family since pre-Independence days.
Gurugram MP Rao Inderjit Singh, 75, referred to as ‘Raja ji’ owing to his royal roots, is the Union Minister of State for Planning. Inderjit is a descendant of Rewari king Rao Tula Ram, one of the leaders of the First War of Independence in 1857 in Haryana. Taking forward his political legacy is his daughter and Haryana Health Minister Arti Singh Rao, a first-time MLA from Ateli.
NCC cadets offering tribute on the occasion of Rao Tula Ram’s martyrdom day, at Naiwala Chowk in Rewari district of Haryana on September 23, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
Both Narbir and Inderjit are part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power at both the Centre and in Haryana. Since the Assembly election in October 2024, however, the BJP’s two Ahir leaders have made indirect digs against each other, aired their differences in public, and taken each other on in the local municipal election to assert their political supremacy. This has fuelled a political tug of war.
The Ahirs (Yadavs), who claim to be connected to the mythical Yadu Dynasty, of which Lord Krishna is believed to be a part, are categorised as a backward class in Haryana. They comprise a little over 5% of Haryana’s electorate, but this pastoral-agricultural community wields considerable political influence.
Inhabiting the Gurugram-Rewari-Mahendragarh region, oft referred to as the Ahirwal belt, the Yadavs are outnumbered by the Jats and Scheduled Castes, which together comprise more than one-third of the voters in the agrarian State. However, community leaders say the Ahirs have voted en masse for the BJP since 2014, contributing to the party’s record three consecutive wins in the Assembly polls.
Party-hopping
Inderjit quit the Congress just ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha poll to join the BJP, turning the tide in favour of the party in Haryana. Political analysts believe there were other factors too that nudged the Ahirs towards the BJP: the deep-rooted Jat and non-Jat divide, with Jats being traditional Congress voters, and the growing influence of the Hindutva-propagating Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the region, which borders the Meo Muslim-dominated Nuh.
The BJP won 47 seats in the 90-member Assembly in 2014 to form its first full-majority government. They had a clean sweep in the Ahirwal belt, winning all 11 constituencies. In 2019, the party’s tally went down to eight. In the 2024 Assembly poll, the BJP, battling anti-incumbency and infighting, crosseds the 45-seat majority mark, winning 10 seats in the Ahirwal region.
The return of Narbir as a Minister in the State Cabinet, after he was denied a BJP ticket for the 2019 poll, has revived the political rivalry between him and Inderjit.
Union Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh’s daughter and Haryana Health Minister Arti Singh Rao offering floral tributes on the occasion of Rao Tula Ram’s martyrdom day, at Naiwala Chowk in Rewari district of Haryana on September 23, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
Active in Haryana politics for five decades, Inderjit has held different portfolios as Union Minister of State in the three Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led governments at the Centre since 2014, besides being Union Minister of State for External Affairs and Defence in the United Progressive Alliance governments earlier.
His father, Rao Birender Singh, served in the Army from 1942 to 1947 and became the first non-Congress Chief Minister of Haryana in March 1967, a year after the State was carved out of Punjab. On September 23, 1978, Birender merged his Vishal Haryana Party with the Congress at the behest of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Before joining the BJP, Narbir had also been with the Haryana Vikas Party and done a brief stint with the Congress. He has been an MLA four times in his political career spanning around four decades, and has been a Minister every time.
Remotely related to Inderjit, Narbir too belongs to a family with an influential political background. His grandfather, Rao Mohar Singh, a law graduate, became a member of the Legislative Council of undivided Punjab in 1944 and remained a legislator till his death in 1958 as Chief Parliamentary Secretary in the late Pratap Singh Kairon’s government. Mohar was also the founder of the Ahir Education Board, Rewari, which now has a network of educational institutions all over north India. Narbir’s father, Rao Mahabir Singh, too served as MLA in 1967, 1968, and 1972 in Haryana. Though the political rivalry between the two Ahir families dates back to the creation of Haryana, Narbir and Inderjit had their first political face-off in 1987. Contesting his first election from the Jatusana Assembly constituency as part of the Lok Dal, the then 26-year-old Narbir defeated Inderjit, then a Congress candidate, by about 9,000 votes.
A 65-year-old Gurugram-based leader, who has worked closely with both Singh and Narbir, says, “Both have their own strong support base of workers who move with them as they switch loyalties. Neither is dependent on the party’s vote bank and both put their interests above the party’s. They support their workers, but they would never want them to grow politically.”
‘Resort politics’
The political rivalry between the two Ahir leaders came to a head in the municipal polls in February this year. The two threw their weight behind rival candidates for the Mayor’s post. The BJP won nine out of the 10 Mayor posts, but its juggernaut was stopped in its own bastion, the Ahirwal belt, with the only loss, which was in the 2020-created Manesar Municipal Corporation.
Union Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh on the occasion of Rao Tula Ram’s martyrdom day, at Naiwala Chowk in Rewari district of Haryana on September 23, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
While Inderjit backed Inderjit Yadav, who contested as an Independent, Narbir and the BJP’s State leadership supported Sunderla Sarpanch. Yadav won the poll by 2,293 votes.
Elections to the posts of Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor in the Manesar Municipal Corporation two months ago again turned into a battle for political dominance between the two leaders. To keep its flock together ahead of the poll on August 5 amid factional rivalry within the party, Narbir flew a dozen councillors, including some Independents, to a resort in Nepal.
Round two went to him, with both his candidates winning and the rival faction staying away from the election.
Ram Kumar Yadav, a supporter of Inderjit, at his ancestral Rampura village in Rewari, says, “ ‘Raja ji’ and his family have been synonymous with Ahirwal politics for centuries. While Narbir might struggle to win his own Assembly constituency, ‘Rao Sahab’ could dictate the outcome of any Assembly seat in the Ahirwal belt,” he says.
On the other side, Naresh Sharma, Inderjit’s personal assistant, says of his employer, “He is the tallest leader in Haryana today. None of his contemporaries, not even former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has won four consecutive terms to the Lok Sabha.”
People waiting to meet Rao Inderjit Singh at his office to air their grievances at Rampura village in Rewari, Haryana on September 19, 2025.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
Countering the claims made by Inderjit’s supporters, those associated with Narbir contend that their leader, unlike his opponent, has mass appeal and takes everyone along. “Chhattis jaat ke log unke picche hain. Woh ek community ke leader nahi hai. Rao Inderjit lagatar satta mein rahe, jabki Rao Narbir karib pachhees saal satta se door rahe. Bus yehi fark hai dono mein (People from all 36 communities are his followers. He is not a leader of a single community. Rao Inderjit has always been in power, while Rao Narbir remained out of power for 25 years. This is the only difference between the two),” says Brahm Yadav, Narbir’s personal assistant.
A third dimension
Another of the BJP’s Ahir leaders and bureaucrat-turned-politician Abhe Singh Yadav is a first-generation politician. The septuagenarian is a former Haryana Minister who lost the Nangal Choudhary Assembly seat last year to the Congress’ Manju Chaudhary. He put up posts on X in August insinuating a conspiracy by Inderjit behind his defeat. He posted a news report that claimed that Inderjit had got a project approved to arrest the depleting groundwater level in south Haryana villages. Along with the clipping, Abhe said: “Taking credit for the work done by others seems like a weakness.” He also criticised his own party: “Not only is MLA Manju Chaudhary of Nangal Chaudhary welcomed at the dinner [hosted by Inderjit], but is also welcomed to the Bharatiya Janata Party…”
On the podcast, Gurukul of Politics, two weeks ago, Abhe spoke about his strained ties with Inderjit, saying that the senior Ahir leader had supported him in his first Assembly election from the Nangal Chaudhary seat in 2014 by addressing a rally in his support and being present at the time of filing of his nomination papers, but the two fell out after he did not support his candidature for the post of Chief Minister.
Moving in
Inderjit has, on several occasions, spoken against his own party, including criticising Manohar Lal, Haryana’s CM for two terms, on public platforms. He has voiced his claim for the CM’s post, saying that the Ahirwal belt had significantly contributed to the BJP’s victories.
Supporters giving a grand welcome to Rao Narbir, who reached Gurugram after becoming a Cabinet Minister in the Nayab Singh Saini government, on October 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
Ashok Kumar
A dozen MLAs, including one from the Congress, attending a dinner hosted at his daughter’s Chandigarh residence recently caused a stir in State politics. As per BJP insiders, the party knows Inderjit’s importance for its survival in the Ahirwal belt. “The BJP, after having denied a ticket to its former State president Ram Bilas Sharma, a prominent south Haryana leader, plans to counter Rao Inderjit Singh jointly with Rao Narbir and Abhe Singh Yadav, both close confidants of Manohar Lal. They want to decrease their dependence on Rao Inderjit Singh,” says a BJP leader on condition of anonymity. Hoping to revive itself in the Ahirwal belt, the Congress has appointed former MLA and Ahir leader Rao Narender Singh as Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee president in an announcement made on September 29.
“It is after five decades that the party has appointed an Ahir leader as State president. Before Bhupinder Singh Hooda took over the Congress’s reins in Haryana in 2005, the Ahirs were traditional Congress voters,” says party spokesperson Ved Prakash Vidhroi. He adds that with Inderjit in his late 70s and his daughter Arti still finding her feet in politics, the Congress hopes to improve its performance.
ashok.kumar@thehindu.co.in
