Birender Singh |
Kiran Chowdhry |
Chandigarh, October 11
As if allegations of “region bias” for developmental projects by opposition parties were not enough, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today came under fire on the issue from two of his senior cabinet colleagues — Birender Singh and Kiran Chowdhry.
As the campaigning for the state Assembly elections ended today, the duo charged Hooda with restricting most developmental projects to Rohtak and Jhajjar for “promoting his and his family’s interests”.
Notably, while Rohtak is the constituency of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, his son Deepinder represents the Rohtak parliamentary seat (which includes Rohtak and Jhajjar).
Calling it Hooda’s “weakness”, the two leaders have alleged that “region bias” had always been the bane of politics in the state. “Every Chief Minister nurtures his constituency, but not by ignoring the rest of the state. Not only did all major projects go to Rohtak and Jhajjar, but it was ensured that the implementation of development works here was much faster,” they said.
All these allegations, it appears, are not without a reason. The PGIMS at Rohtak is being upgraded to the standards of All India Institute of Medical Sciences while another-like institute AIIMS has been allotted to Jhajjar. An IIM is being coming up at Rohtak while a new international airport is also proposed to be built at Jhajjar. Rohtak has been linked to at least four national highways, besides hundreds of crores having been spent on creating road, water and sewerage infrastructure in the two districts.
Also, the two districts are being promoted as the new industrial belt in the state. Besides Industrial Model Township at Rohtak, all major industrial investment has been done in this belt during the past five years.
“I have no opposition to development of Rohtak. But the adjoining district of Bhiwani has been completely
ignored.
There is a stark contrast as you leave Rohtak and enter Bhiwani, which now looks like the back of beyond. There is a severe shortage of drinking water, no additional infrastructure has been created and the drainage system is in a mess. My contention is that the development should have been uniform,” said Chowdhry.
Picking up from where Chowdhry left, Birender Singh said some projects did got to other districts but all major projects were assigned to Rohtak and Jhajjar. “It has been a precedent in Haryana that the Chief Minister has always nurtured his constituency, but development has always been uniform across the state. As a senior minister I ensured my constituency was not ignored, but no new projects came to my segment,” he rued.
