Four HVP MLAs back Chautala
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Oct 31 — Four more legislators of the Haryana Vikas Party today came out openly in support of the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, who had, they asserted, taken some revolutionary decisions in the larger interest of the people of the state.

In a joint statement here today the legislators, Mr Jagdish Yadav, Mr Ram Saroop, Mr Jagdish Nayar and Mr Subhash Chaudhary, hailed the policies of Mr Chautala and severely criticised their party president, Mr Bansi Lal, for his continued dictatorial attitude and biased decisions. The decisions taken by the government so far were revolutionary and aimed at larger interest of the people. Only a man of Mr Chautala's farsightedness and political will could take historic decision like the abolition of octroi and the massive mandate which the INLD-BJP combine secured in the Lok Sabha poll provided ample proof of his government's progressive policies.

Interestingly, the legislators while they were ministers in the Bansi Lal Government have been highly critical of Mr Chautala and often called him a rabid casteist and a dictator.

Terming Mr Bansi Lal as the ‘Vinash Purush’ of Haryana, the MLAs charged the former Chief Minister with misleading the people on the issue of power and causing immense damage to the state's economy by his disastrous policies. He made a false promise to provide uninterrupted power to the people and during his tenure not a single megawatt was added to the generation capacity.

Worse, Mr Bansi Lal tried to throttle the voice of people by resorting to aggressive measures like police firing and registration of cases against farmers who were agitating for their just demands for adequate power and water. The uncalled for interference of Mr Lal's family members in the state administration demoralised employees.

They alleged that the policy of prohibition was introduced to create a liquor mafia in the state. While the state suffered heavy losses, Mr Bansi Bansi Lal's family members pocketed huge sums of money, they further alleged.

Mr Jagdish Yadav said that Mr Lal worked specifically against the interest of southern Haryana and stopped releasing funds for the construction of regional centre of the MDU as Meerpur in Rewari.

Mr Bansi Lal, the legislators said, had not learnt any lesson from his past mistakes and that was the reason why he was rejected by those who once supported him.

He was hand in glove with Mr Bhupinder Hooda, the state Congress chief, and had asked them to support the Congress candidates in all the seats, except Bhiwani, from where his son was contesting. They alleged that the HVP had been reduced to a B team of the Congress and no MLA in the state wanted to work with the "casteist and anti-farmer party" like the Congress.

The HVP was now left with Mr Bansi Lal, his son, his son-in-law and one or two rootless self-seekers, they claimed.