Bhupinder Hooda takes swipe at Haryana Govt over power crisis

Chandigarh: Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda alleged that the Manohar Lal Khattar government is busy renaming cities and schemes at a time when the state is reeling under a power crisis. 

The Congress leader said no development has taken place in the state in the BJP rule and the government “only transferred officials and indulged in vendetta politics”.

He said frequent power cuts due to energy shortfall was a major issue facing the state.

The problem compounded with “Haryana surrendering its share in the Jharli power plant in Jhajjar”, he claimed.

Mr Hooda claimed there was no such problem when the Congress was in power in the state from 2005 to 2014 and “it will lead to the downfall of this government”.

The Congress leader said the Khattar government has failed on all fronts and learned nothing and that earlier he gave it a zero, “but now I will give them negative marks”.

He claimed many BJP MLAs were feeling frustrated because people have started asking questions as nothing has been done for them.

Facing heat over the case of re-allotment of a plot to Associated Journals Limited (AJL), the company that owned the Congress-controlled National Herald newspaper, in Panchkula in 2005, Mr Hooda reiterated the BJP government was “indulging in vendetta politics”.

“If they want to put me behind bars, they should just tell me the date and time. I will reach the prison. My suitcase is ready. I want to tell them that I will not be cowed down by such threats … I am not afraid of anything,” he said.

Mr Hooda said a fair investigation will prove that he had not committed anything wrong.

He termed the Sutlej-Yamuna canal issue as Haryana’s lifeline “but petty politics was harming the state’s interests”.

“We should rise above party politics and put pressure on the Centre, asking it to complete the digging of the SYL canal,” he said.