Bansi Lal

Bansi Lal (1927 to 2006) was a Congress leader from Bhiwani who became the dominant politician of Haryana, the state formed in 1966 from the Hindi-speaking districts of the old Punjab. He enters this history twice: as a member of the Parliamentary Committee on the Demand for Punjabi Suba in 1965 and 1966, and, from 1968, as Haryana's Chief Minister.

The committee had 22 members. Bansi Lal was one of seven Rajya Sabha members on the committee, which sat under the chairmanship of Sardar Hukam Singh. It adopted its report on 15 March 1966, recommending a Punjabi-speaking State, a separate Haryana State, and the merger of the hill areas with Himachal Pradesh; it left to the Government whether parts of Delhi should be joined to Haryana. In a note dated 17 March 1966 Bansi Lal agreed with the report on principle, but objected to the shape of Haryana. He argued that its people would be exploited more by the more advanced people of Delhi, whose administration should stay with the Centre, and wanted the Hindi region without the hill areas made a full Haryana State. In the same note he called the use of the Golden Temple by Sant Fateh Singh and others for political purposes “highly objectionable”, saying politics should not be mixed with religion.

Key moments

• 1960 to 1966: member of the Rajya Sabha; Wikipedia gives a second spell, 1976 to 1980.
• 15 to 17 March 1966: the committee reports and Bansi Lal writes his note.
• 1968: becomes Haryana's third Chief Minister at 41, the youngest in the country at the time, according to The Tribune. Wikipedia gives his terms as 1968 to 1975, 1986 to 1987 and 1996 to 1999; The Tribune says he held the post four times.
• 21 December 1975 to 24 March 1977: Union Defence Minister during the Emergency. The Tribune says he was close to Indira Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi and part of an “Emergency caucus” whose role the Shah Commission examined.
• 28 March 2006: dies at New Delhi, aged 78.

Remembered for: being the Haryana voice on the 1966 committee and, as Chief Minister from 1968, the dominant figure of the new state that Punjabi Suba's creation brought into being.