Asserting that Congress vote percentage has increased significantly in the recently concluded Lok Sabha Elections, former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday said that INDI Alliance is functional only at the national level, ruling out the possibility of any alliance for the assembly elections later this year.
He said the Congress did not “need an alliance with any party for fighting Assembly elections in the state as it is capable of fighting the elections alone.” As part of the seat-sharing arrangement of the INDIA bloc during Lok Sabha Election, the Congress conceded the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat to AAP but its candidate Sushil Gupta lost to industrialist Naveen Jindal of the BJP. The Congress contested nine seats and won five--Rohtak, Sirsa, Hisar, Sonipat and Ambala, with the BJP winning the other five.
Talking to reporters in Chandigarh, Hooda, the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, said that the people of Haryana had reduced the BJP to half in the Lok Sabha elections, and the party will be completely wiped out in the assembly elections. The vote percentage of Congress had shown a significant increase in the Lok Sabha elections in Haryana. “The party has received full support of all communities. In comparison to all the states, INDIA Alliance has got the highest 47.6 percent votes in Haryana. Compared to the last Lok Sabha elections, the votes of the Congress alliance have increased by about 20 percent while the votes of BJP have decreased by 12 per cent. Congress has taken the lead in 46 assembly segments,” he said.
The Senior Congress leader said after the crushing defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, and fearing a complete washout in the Vidhan Sabha elections, BJP has now remembered the free plots scheme of 100 yards, started during the Congress government. “The scheme was started during the Congress government, and free plots of 100 yards were distributed to about four lakh poor, SC and OBC families,” he said.
The Congress party had planned to give these plots to more than 7 lakh families of the state, but the BJP stopped this scheme as soon as it came to power. Due to this, some of the beneficiary families could not get possession allotted by Congress. For 10 years, the BJP kept the beneficiaries deprived of the plots. By stopping this scheme, the BJP snatched the right of 100 square yards plots from more than 3 lakh families. The BJP should apologize to all the poor, SC and OBC families for this,” he said.
BJP entangled the public in the web of portals like Parivar Pehchan Patra and Property ID, as about 90 to 95 per cent flaws were found in it. Therefore, Congress has announced that all unnecessary portals will be abolished after the formation of the government,” he promised.
Hooda said that BJP is continuously eliminating permanent jobs, reservation for SC and OBC. “This is the reason why permanent recruitments are not being done for the 2 lakh vacant posts in the state, and these posts are being filled through Kaushal Nigam. There is no transparency in Kaushal Nigam, no provision of merit and no reservation,” he said.
He also spoke about the power shortage in the state. He said the public is constantly facing a severe shortage of electricity and water. “As soon as the elections were over, the government started imposing long power cuts. Now it is being said that the state will have to buy 2000 MW of additional electricity,” he said.
