IEP Chandigarh
Criticizing the Manohar Lal Khattar led BJP government in Haryana, Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday deemed the Khattar regime zero in terms of development and guaranteeing employment.
Hooda flayed the Parivar Pehchan Patra scheme (Family ID), described by the Khattar government as its flagship programme. He said that people told him that the Parivar Pehchan Patra had turned out to be a “Permanent Pareshani Patra (a permanent document of trouble)”. Adding that the Parivar Pehchan Patra issue was also raised during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, he said, had seen tremendous participation of people from various sections.
The Leader of Opposition in the Haryana Assembly alleged that the government had also canceled ration cards of 10 lakh families and the incomes of some families were shown to increase 8-10 times. Even the ration cards of children as young as four to five years were canceled by showing annual incomes of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000.
Notwithstanding Khattar countering him on providing “inflated figures” of the state’s debt, Hooda said Haryana’s debt stood at Rs 3.25 lakh crore plus other liabilities of Rs 1.22 lakh crore at present. “If the government feels that this figure is not correct, then it should immediately issue a white paper,” Hooda, a former chief minister of Haryana, said.
Highlighting the government’s failure over providing jobs, he said Haryana had an unemployment rate of over 37 per cent.
Hooda also alleged that Khattar often tried to falsify reports of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy while governments in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, governed by the BJP, quote its figures. Dismissing the state government’s claims that it was giving more powers to the panchayats, Hooda said it was, in fact, handing powers to officials as it wanted to end the power of sarpanches.
While interacting with the reporters present in Chandigarh, Hooda said the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra, which recently concluded its Haryana leg, was completely successful. The former Haryana chief minister said the yatra witnessed “tremendous participation” of people, including farmers, laborers, women, youth, retired officers from the Army and the Air Force, and sportspersons, among others.
During its two phases in Haryana, the yatra passed through seven districts — Nuh, Gurugram, Faridabad, Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra, and Ambala. “The first phase started from Nuh, where people raised the problems of roads, electricity, and water. During the journey from Nuh to Ambala, the poor condition of the roads showed us the quality of governance. “Except the national highway, all the other roads at many places only have potholes,” he said.
