Manohar Lal Khattar kicks up row in Hisar again

Controversies and former Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar go hand in hand, it seems, whenever he is on a visit in Hisar district.

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During his interaction with residents in Patel Nagar locality in the town yesterday night, he lost his cool and directed his security guards to evict a youth from the meeting venue after the latter predicted defeat of the BJP candidate from Hisar.

Khattar was having a meeting with residents at Punjabi dharamshala in Patel Nagar. He said the BJP would come back to power for the third time and Hisar MLA would play a special role in the formation of the government. “Is this clear?” Khattar asked the residents. However, a youth reverted, “Ye nahi hai. Abki bar sarkar to BJP ki banegi, par Hisar se BJP ka vidhayak (MLA) harega.” At this, Khattar retorted “harega?” and directed security personnel to catch hold of the youth.

“Catch him. Le jao pakad ke baahar (get him out of here). Himmat kaise ho gai iski. (How dare he…),” he said. As the youth again tried to argue with Khattar, he asked the security personnel to take him out of the venue.

Besides this incident, Khattar kicked off row while campaigning for BJP Lok Sabha candidate Ranjit Singh, Khattar narrated an anecdote linked with Bhajan Lal at Kaimri village. Without naming the politician (apparently Bhajan Lal), he said there was a CM in the past who advised a person to pay bribe to patwari to get his work done rather than incurring expense for going to Chandigarh to complain about this.

Khattar’s remark irked Bhajan Lal’s son and BJP leader Kuldeep Bishnoi and the Bishnoi community. Ranjit Singh trailed from both the Bishnoi-dominated segments of Adampur and Nalwa during the poll, resulting in his defeat.

Before that, Khattar had mocked at a woman during a jan samwad programme in September 2023.