Haryana Diary: 'Selfie with Daughter' campaign

Jind: A ‘Selfie with Daughter’ founder Sunil Jaglan visited Kashmir recently, urging Kashmiri families to participate in the campaign. Jaglan said there were 160 entries from Kashmir for the ‘Selfie with Daughter’ campaign this year. Earlier, Kashmiri families and girls had never participated in the campaign, which had been going on for the last seven years, Jaglan added. Jaglan, a former sarpanch of Bibipur village in Jind district, said, “The campaign, which aims at women empowerment, will elect three best ‘Selfie with Daughter’ photos in the contest this year.”

Dhankar’s flip-flop on MC polls

Chandigarh: Life seems to have come full circle for state BJP chief OP Dhankar. On May 28, an over-enthusiastic Dhankar announced in Hisar that the BJP would go it alone in the civic body elections in Haryana without its alliance partner the JJP, but the development did not go down well with a section of the state and central leaderships. However, a week later, Dhankar took a U-turn by announcing that both the parties would fight the civic poll jointly in the “changed circumstances”. Ironically, Dhankar’s U-turn came in the presence of the JJP state leadership. Obviously, Dhankar’s flip-flop was a butt of jokes for rival political parties, especially the rookie AAP entering the MC polls on party symbol for the first time.

‘Manohar Lal is also Jannayak’

Sirsa: The reference to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar as ‘Jannayak’ by a senior minister at a rally in Odhan village of Sirsa district last week surprised many. The minister even drew a comparison between the former Deputy Prime Minister Chaudhary Devi Lal, who is referred to as ‘Tau’ and ‘Jannayak’ in politics and Khattar, stating that both were from the middle-class background and worked to uplift poorest sections of society. “I will like to call you ‘Jannayak’. You are titled as ‘Jannayak’ from today,” the minister said at the rally.

Govt events show of strength

Ambala: Events like inauguration and foundation laying ceremonies of different projects organised by the district administration are being used by local leaders of the BJP as opportunities to show their strength and dedication in front of senior leaders, especially the Chief Minister. Local leaders and party workers bring their own groups of supporters and keep raising slogans even during speeches just to get senior leaders’ attention. While local workers find it normal to turn a government event into a political party event, it creates chaos and disturbs the programme.

Credit war between BJP MLAs

Mahendragarh: The floating of new tender for the four-laning of Mahendragarh-Narnaul highway has triggered a credit war between Minister Om Prakash Yadav, the BJP MLA from Narnaul, and Abhay Singh Yadav, the BJP Nangal Choudhary MLA. Both leaders issued separate press releases to the media describing the project as a lifeline of development in the region. “The first press release in this respect came from Abhay Singh Yadav in the morning. When Om Prakash Yadav came to know about it, his media-coordinator released a press note in this respect in the evening,” said sources.

Maken’s nomination questioned

Rohtak: The Congress is under fire from various quarters for fielding Delhi leader Ajay Maken for the Rajya Sabha election from Haryana. The move is being questioned and decried even by the staunch party supporters. Political observers and party insiders pointed out that the fear of cross-voting was behind the decision. “Had the Congress fielded a Haryana-based leader, he/she would have owed allegiance to a certain faction. Given the rampant infighting in the state Congress, the party MLAs belonging to the rival faction(s) would have voted against the official candidate. Hence, the party leadership decided to field an outsider,” observed a political pundit.

Contributed by: Pradeep Sharma, Nitish Sharma, Ravinder Saini, Deepender Deswal & Sunit Dhawan.