People to vote for development, jobs on merit: Dhankar

The BJP national secretary and former agriculture minister, Om Prakash Dhankar, who is in the fray from the Badli Assembly constituency, is flagging the issue of government jobs, development and land acquisition in his poll meetings to corner the Congress candidate.

Considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the former BJP state president claimed that the constituency had witnessed a lot of development during his tenure as MLA from 2014 to 2019. Dhankar had lost the previous Assembly poll to Congress’ Kuldeep Vats in 2019. This time, too, they are taking on each other in the poll battle.

Dhankar, who was also the convener of the BJP's manifesto committee, said development and government jobs were the major issues. ‘Parchi-kharchi’ system prevailed during the previous Congress regime in terms of giving jobs, while meritorious candidates were ignored. But the BJP ended that system and ensured jobs on the basis of merit, he said.

“Now, we have promised to give 2 lakh jobs. Nothing can be bigger than this for meritorious unemployed youths. Similarly, the BJP has ensured equal development across the state,” he said.

“People have not forgotten the misrule of the Congress when costly land of farmers was acquired in the name of development at cheaper rates and were later sold off to corporate houses. The Congress government ruined a large number of poor farmers in my Badli constituency itself. They are now struggling to make both ends meet, but the BJP did not acquire the farmers’ land.” he added.

Asked about development works in the constituency, Dhankar claimed no official above patwari was posted at Badli when he was elected MLA. “I got Badli the status of a tehsil and subdivision. Now, the SDM is sitting there to redress public grievances. We brought an excellence centre of floriculture at Munimpur, regional centre of horticulture at Raiya, Government Women College at Kulana, Sanskriti School and PWD rest house at Patoda. The National Cancer Institute, Ayurvedic Hospital at Deverkhana and KMP Expressway projects were executed by our government,” he claimed.