After Lok Sabha electoral defeat, BJP also accepted its defeat on policy front: Hooda

CHANDIGARH: Former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda has said on Wednesday that the ruling BJP has now also accepted its policy defeat on the policy front too, after its electoral debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, as the government is now reviving old Congress policies the BJP government had discontinued.

“The same BJP, which had stopped the scheme of free plot allotment of 100 square yards started by Congress as soon as it came to power, is now talking about distributing plots. The same BJP which considered Family and Property ID as its biggest achievement, is now accepting its flaws,” the former Chief Minister said.

Hooda, while speaking with the media at his residence in Chandigarh said the government of police, propaganda and portal has been running in Haryana for the last 10 years. “Through the police, BJP showered lathi and bullets on farmers, employees, Panchs and Sarpanchs. Police atrocities were also unleashed on Asha workers, Anganwadi workers, Mid Day Meal workers and sanitation workers who were demanding salary hike,” he said, highlighting the high-handed attitude of the BJP government.

“BJP entangled the public in the web of portals like Parivar Pehchan Patra and Property ID, and 90 to 95% flaws were found in it. Hundreds of crores of Rupees worth of scams were carried out through these schemes. Despite large scale frauds being detected in the portals, no action was taken against the agencies that created them,” he added.

The Leader of Opposition said BJP wants to end government education, permanent jobs and reservation for SC-OBCs. “This is the reason why it has increased the fees of government institutions several times to deprive the poor, farmers and SC-OBC families of education. In MDU, the government has made its intentions clear by increasing the fees by 5 times,” he said.

Hooda pointed out that this government is not making permanent recruitments for the 2 lakh vacant posts in the state and these posts are being filled through Kaushal Nigam, because there is no transparency, no merit and no reservation in Kaushal Nigam.

“If there is no government education and jobs, reservation will end automatically. To end the reservation, the government reduced the creamy layer limit of backward classes from 8 to 6 lakhs, which ended reservation for lakhs of families. But the Congress government will increase it to 10 lakhs so that the backward class can get the benefit of reservation,” he promised.

Hooda said that the Congress government had launched a revolutionary scheme in the country to give the right to residential land in villages to poor families. Through this scheme, free plots of 100 square yards were distributed to about four lakh poor, SC and OBC families.

He said Congress had planned to give these plots to more than 7 lakh families of the state, but BJP stopped this scheme as soon as it came to power. “Due to this, the beneficiary families could not get possession of some plots allotted by Congress. For 10 years, BJP kept the beneficiaries deprived of plots. By closing this scheme, BJP snatched the right of 100 square yards plot from more than 3 lakh families. For this, BJP should apologize to all the poor, SC and OBC families,” he stated.

Hooda once again expressed concern over the shortage of electricity today. He said the government started imposing long power cuts as soon as the elections were over. He said people are now being told that the state will have to buy 2000 MW of additional electricity.

“The Congress government had made Haryana a surplus state in power generation, but no new power project was established and not even a single unit of new electricity was generated in Haryana during the BJP tenure. Today, the people of Haryana have to bear the brunt of this,” he said.