Times
of India: Chandigarh: Thursday, 26 November 2015.
The BJP
government in Haryana has barely completed one year and its chief minister
Manohar Lal Khattar is already facing allegations of showering too many goodies
on his own constituency of Karnal. Ironically, his predecessor Bhupinder Singh
Hooda too had faced similar allegations of never shifting his gaze from hometown
of Rohtak.
Information
procured by Gurgaon resident Abhay Jain under RTI has revealed that as many as
98 development projects out of total 889 announcements by the chief minister
between October 25, 2014 and October 20, 2015 were in Karnal district. This is
the highest among all 21 districts of the state.
The RTI reply
has also shown that the number of projects executed in Karnal is the highest at
23. This has led to allegations that districts dominated by INLD MLAs are being
ignored as not a single project has been executed in Sirsa and Fatehabad.
Palwal and Panchkula are the other two districts with no projects being
executed.
The
government however claims that the numbers don't reflect the true picture.
"Many of the projects in Karnal may have low value," insists Jawahar
Yadav, officer on special duty to the chief minister.
Despite a
wave in which it got 47 of the 90 seats in the state assembly, BJP did not win
a single seat in Sirsa, Palwal and Mewat during the 2014 assembly polls. Mewat,
the only district in the state with a large Muslim population and Haryana's
most backward area, saw the least announcements - nine. Surprisingly, even
Panchkula got nine announcements despite being an extension of the capital
Chandigarh.
Hooda's
alleged love for Rohtak was made into an election issue by the BJP, accusing
him of lopsided development. In the reply to Jain, the chief minister's
secretariat informed that about 10% works of the total announcements have been
executed during the one-year rule of the BJP government. Almost 20% works have
been found "not feasible".
In former
chief minister Om Parkash Chautala's home district Sirsa, as many as 29
projects were announced with zero execution. Haryana Janhit Congress supremo
Kuldeep Bishnoi's home district Hisar saw just two projects being executed out
of 15 announcements. Sirsa and Hisar constituencies are represented by INLD MPs
in the Lok Sabha. As many as 10 works were executed in Hooda's home district
Rohtak where Khattar made 48 announcements.
INLD general
secretary R S Chaudhary says BJP came to power on the slogan of balanced
development but didn't keep its word. "Karnal has even been chosen for the
smart city project along with Faridabad, represented by Union minister and BJP
leader Krishan Pal Gujjar in Parliament," he says. "Why don't we plan
smart cities in less developed districts like Mahendergarh, Rewari, Sirsa and
Ambala?"
Yadav, on the
other hand, says that the BJP government is giving equal importance to all
areas. "The chief minister has announced Rs 5 crore for each of the nine
assembly constituencies in Sirsa recently despite BJP having no MLA
there," he says.