With just two years left for the Haryana Assembly elections, jailed Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) chief, Om Prakash Chautala, appears to be playing the victim card for his conviction in the recruitment scam for 10 years.

Out of jail on a 14-day parole, the INLD chief blaming his Congress rival and former Chief Minister (CM) Bhupinder Singh Hooda for his conviction in the recruitment scam for 10 years.

Both Chautala and Hooda belong to the politically dominant Jat community in the state and this move of playing the victim card appears to be aimed at gaining the community’s sympathy.

Speaking to his party workers in Rohtak on Friday, the former CM Chautala said clever Hooda did many wrong things during his decade-long tenure as the state CM, but he did a good thing by sending him (Chautala) to jail for 10 years.

“.. because of this (jail), many of our bitter rivals who never voted for us or ever had any sympathy, are also abusing the BJP and the Congress. Now they say our (INLD) government was better than this (BJP and Congress governments),” he said while addressing party workers.

Chautala, who is serving a 10-year sentence for JBT recruitment scam in Tihar Jail, expressed the confidence that the next government in the state will be formed by none other than the INLD.

The INLD chief said he is serving 10 years in jail as he employed 3200 teachers in his government’s tenure. Chautala said if required, he is prepared to go to jail (in other case) again for giving employment to the youth.

Hitting back, state Congress spokesman Ran Singh Mann said advised the 82-year-old Chautala against resorting to baseless allegations at this juncture of his life. He said the INLD leader has been jailed not by an individual, but by the court.

In a statement on Saturday, Mann reminded the INLD supremo that the case against him the teacher recruitment scam was filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was there and the INLD was also a part of it.

“If the CBI court in Delhi has convicted him (Chautala), what is the role of Hooda in it ? He is trying to fool the people of Haryana and it’s a direct case of the contempt of the court as he is blaming others for his conviction, ” Mann said.