Eye on poll, Hooda planssix-month-long rath yatra

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 12

The Congress camp owing allegiance to former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda plans to undertake elaborate political activities throughout the year and in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections which are likely to be held in May next year.

The plans include rath yatra starting in the mid of February and continuing for at least six months during which Hooda is to visit almost all big villages and towns of all 90 Assembly segments of the state and ‘chhatra panchayats’ and youth ‘aakrosh’ rallies by his MP son Deepender Hooda across the state.

The Congress will also submit a chargesheet against the state government to Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki in which the party will “expose” the government on issue of corruption and law and order.

He said during his visit to Rohtak, BJP’s national president Amit Shah had already told his party workers to remain prepared for the parliamentary and Assembly elections to be held together and hence, the Congress was getting ready for both the elections.

Comparing the BJP regime with the previous Hooda government, the Congress MP said that the previous government launched five new power plants (4 thermal and 1 atomic) at a cost of Rs 43,300 crore to produce 8,000 MW of power, but the present government didn’t launch a single new unit.

Deepender claimed that during Hooda regime, six news industrial model townships (IMT) were carved out that brought investments worth several lakh crore of rupees, but not a single IMT had been set up during Khattar regime.

He also mentioned opening of 12 state universities, 14 private universities and 9 deemed universities, 4 new medical colleges, besides opening AIIMS-2 in Jhajjar, IIM in Rohtak, IIT in Badhra (Jhajjar), Indian National Defence University (INDU) at Binola, NIFT in Panchkula, NID in Kurukshetra, Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP) at Bahadurgarh and Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) in Rohtak. Deepender said that the final schedule of the party’s rath yatra and other programmes would be released very soon.