Haryana had its share of sordid news in 2017. From the controversial self-styled Godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh to the incident of lynching of a 17-year-old boy, the State remained in the limelight for all the wrong reasons in 2017.
The issue of deteriorating law and order situation, farmers’ woes and exam leak scams also hogged the limelight for a better part of the year in Haryana.
Throughout the year, Congress and principal Opposition Indian National lok Dal (INlD) kept up its attacks on the Manohar lal Khattar Government over its alleged failure on issues related to law and order, farmers, governance, unemployment, wasteful expenditure on festivals and fairs among others.
While the year 2016 saw a trail of death and destruction following the Jat quota stir, the Jat community remained on warpath during February-March this year as well and sat on dharnas over their main demands of reservation and withdrawal of cases against Jat youth arrested during quota agitation.
In May and December, the State saw two brutal cases of rape and murder involving a 23-year-old woman from Sonipat and a six-year-old girl from Uklana in Hisar.
The Opposition parties were up in arms against the Government on the law and order front and other issues with former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and leader of Opposition Abhay Singh Chautala leading the charge. Congress leaders like Randeep Singh Surjewala, Kiran Choudhry, Ashok Tanwar also addressed series of rallies raising issues of various sections.
The main Opposition INlD also vociferously raised the Sutlej Yamuna link canal issue and blamed the BJP led Centre and Haryana Governments for failing to safeguard the interests of the State.
Amid reports of rebellion by several BJP MlAs against Chief Minister Manohar lal, the BJP national president Amit Shah paid a visit to Haryana in August and ruled out the possibility of change of guard in Haryana putting all speculation to rest. More than a dozen Haryana BJP MlAs had earlier this year lodged a complaint with the central party leadership against their own State Government and had blamed Manohar lal for sluggish implementation of various projects.
Just like previous year, rising pollution levels, apparently caused by stubble burning, affected the entire region following which Chief Ministers of Delhi and Haryana held discussions on a range of issues and dwelt on possible measures to prevent the re-occurrence of smog next winter.
At the end of the year, another unfortunate incident in Haryana snowballed into a national debate on unethical practices followed by private hospitals and poor healthcare system of the country. A 7-year-old girl died of dengue at Fortis Hospital in Gurugram in September and the hospital charged the victim’s family Rs 16 lakh for the treatment. The incident came to light in November and a Haryana government inquiry panel indicted the hospital, saying there were “several irregularities” and the total bill was charged at profit margin of 108 percent.
The golden jubilee year of Haryana, however, also brought jubilation when Manushi Chillar was crowned Miss World and 29-year-old police sub-inspector Anita Kundu became the first Indian woman to scale Mount Everest from the China side. Haryana, which is infamous for the worst sex ratio among states in the country, also saw improvement in gender ratio as it reached 937 women for every 1,000 men, compared to 830 women in 2011.
This year, Haryana also became kerosene-free State while rural Haryana was declared open defecation free in June.