Hisar, October 8
Once known as the chief of the Green Brigade which formed the backbone of former Prime Minister VP Sing’s election campaign in 1989, the Congress nominee for the Hisar Lok Sabha seat, Jai Prakash, has transformed over the years into an electoral warhorse.

He has triumphed from the Hisar seat thrice since 1989 and has also lost from here for an equal number of times. Victories and defeats notwithstanding, at 58 now, he has lost none of his gusto.

An orator par excellence, he retains the loyalty of his supporters whom he brought together as a protégé of the late Devi Lal who made him a Deputy Minister in the VP Singh Cabinet. These supporters have stayed with him through thick and thin and now form his core team that is working overtime to help him win this time.

Better known as just JP in Hisar, the Congress nominee prefers an early start to his campaign. A typical day involves 14 hours of toiling in the countryside seeking votes. His loyal band of Green Brigade ex-volunteers make sure that his security is not breached besides taking care of all his needs during a typical day of campaigning.

Despite the entire Congress leadership of Haryana, beginning with Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, rallying behind him, he is touring the constituency separately for over two weeks.

He starts his day around nine in the morning, carefully selecting about a dozen villages of one of the nine Assembly segments. He arrives at Rohnat village of Bawani Khera constituency, which is his first stop of the day. A large crowd is already there. The theme of his speech is development.

“Before you go to bed today, spare a few moments to analyse which party can make the future of your children better. And which party can ensure development of your area. The Congress government still has three years to go. Your area has developed speedily in the past six years. It is time to consolidate the gains,” he says.

He rattles off data about much money the Hooda government has pumped into their villages. Then he tears into his opponents. “Kuldeep Bishnoi was MP from Bhiwani for five years. Did he spend even one rupee on your village? Did you meet him face to face during these five years?” he asks the audience. The crowd stirs and responds “no never”.

JP then singles out Ajay Chautala. “Have you ever wondered why Chautala keeps changing his constituency every time? I have always contested from Hisar and have never gone to any other constituency. I am a loyalist and I wish to serve the people of my constituency,” he asserts. Someone in the crowd blurts out, “Theek kave se, bhai, yeh baat to hai” (“He is right in saying that”).

At Rateda village, he makes fun of the HJC-BJP tie up. “It is like a shop that has wares of somebody else. Such a venture is non-viable always. So, do not lend any weight to this opportunistic alliance,” he said, adding that the BJP was notorious for breaking up alliances with every party it tied up in the past. His next halt is Popasa.

By the time he ends his day, the speech has been repeated in about 10 villages. Once he boards his car on his way back, he invites three of his close associates to ride with him to finalise the strategy for the next day. With another three days to go, he does not look even a bit tired. 

Fatehabad, October 8
Parliamentary bypoll at Hisar has come as an unforeseen trouble for the 15-odd runaway couples of the district.

Hard pressed to spare a majority of cops at its disposal for the October 13 Hisar parliamentary bypoll, the district police today withdrew security cover from most of the 15 runaway couples enjoying police security by court orders.

The DSP (Headquarters) Shamsher Singh Dahiya today summoned the couples to the SP office to review the threat perception to them and withdrew security guards provided to most of them.

Dahiya maintained that the security has been withdrawn as a temporary measure in view of the Hisar parliamentary byelection.

The district police has a constabulary strength of 1,101 personnel and about 65 per cent of these are likely to be deputed for the bypoll, said police sources.

The police, the sources said, has to deploy cops on certain unavoidable duties like transportation of prisoners from Hisar jail to the local district courts, traffic regulation, VVIP duties, besides managing the police stations.

Dahiya said the couples had been given the option of staying in the protection home set up by the police at the district headquarters.

He said security of those couples, who have serious threat to their lives from their relatives, had not been withdrawn.

A runaway couple, getting police protection under the court orders, gets one constable for their security.

One such couple, Asha Rani and Ram Phal, residents of Dhani Dulet, have been enjoying police protection since March 5, 2009, and according a recent review of the threat perception to the couple, the DSP (Headquarters) had reported that threat
still existed for the couple and the security should be continued.

Similarly, in cases of Harvinder Kaur and Jaspal Singh of Saniyana village and Sushila Devi and Ramesh Kumar of Chobara village, threat still continues to haunt their lives, according to the DSP’s report.

The police had last year set up a protection home for the runaway couples in two staff quarters of the Government College for Women, Bhodiakhera, though very few couples have preferred to stay there. 

Manesar/Gurgaon, October 8
The striking workers of Maruti-Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) today intensified their agitation over the issue of non-induction of former contractual/casual workmen at the company’s Manesar plant.

The protesters observed a flash strike and the stir spread to the local units of other Suzuki concerns, including Suzuki Powertrain India and Suzuki Motorcycle India.

The MSIL management, which had termed taking back the contractual staff a “non-issue”, today accused the protesting workers of indulging in violence, assaulting the non-striking workmen and causing damage to company’s property.

“The latest round of labour unrest at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant is degenerating into a law and order problem, with workers indulging in several random acts of violence and damage to property on the factory premises on Saturday,” the company said in a statement issued today.

It alleged that the agitating workers attacked co-workers, supervisors and executives in multiple incidents of violence, and damaged factory property since they began the stay-in strike on Friday evening.

“On Saturday, the company was able to rescue as many as 355 contractual workers. They had been beaten up by the striking workers and forced to join the strike. These contractual workers were rescued by the police. They were provided medical assistance, and later left the factory premises,” it added.

The company categorically alleged that the striking workers were holding hundreds of co-workers under duress inside the Manesar factory and threatening them if they break ranks.

“We are regularly apprising the Haryana government about the violent acts by the workers…. We are concerned about the safety of our people as well as the plant and machinery,” said a company spokesperson.

“The striking workers were ostensibly demanding that certain contract workers be taken in by the company. This was given as the reason for the stay in. Despite the company management reiterating that it will take in these contract workers as production is ramped up over the next one week, the stay-in has continued. Already, 170 of these contractual workers were taken back and had joined production operations before the stay-in began,” he maintained.

Hisar, October 8
Launching its anti-Congress campaign, Team Anna today warned that if the Congress-led UPA government failed to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill in the winter session of Parliament, it will oppose it in every subsequent election in the country.

Addressing their first public meeting at Narnaund, about 40 km from here, Team Anna members Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia said that as the ruling party, it was the responsibility of the Congress to pass the Bill. But it was opposed to the Jan Lokpal Bill as it feared that many of its ministers would land in jails if it was passed.

Kejriwal said if the Congress was defeated in the byelection to the Hisar Lok Sabha seat, it would send a strong message to all members of Parliament, cutting across party lines, that they would meet the same fate if they continued to oppose the Bill.
Kejriwal said it was Anna Hazare’s strong desire that the masses voted against the Congress till it got the Jan Lokpal Bill passed in Parliament. He said the Congress was opposed to the provision of a time frame in which the Lokpal should deliver its verdict on complaints of corruption. It was also opposed to imposing penalties on government officials who failed to ensure service delivery to the citizens within a time frame. But without these provisions, the Jan Lokpal Bill would serve no purpose, he added.

Manish Sisodia said the Congress had been accusing Team Anna of playing politics. “Yes, we are playing politics. For 64 years, we the people had been engaged in ‘jitwane ki rajniti’, but we now plan to introduce ‘harane ki rajniti’,” he said, adding that a strong message needed to be sent from Hisar that opposition to the Jan Lokpal Bill would not get people elected to Parliament.

Both Kejriwal and Sisodia appealed to their supporters to take the anti-Congress crusade to every household in the constituency and ensure defeat for the Congress nominee.

All Team Anna members, including Gopal Rai, denied that the BJP or the RSS had anything to do with their campaign. “We have a single point agenda at the moment, and it is the Jan Lokpal Bill. There is no other hidden agenda and there is no overt or covert support from any quarters,” they asserted.

However, the size of the crowd at the meeting must have come as a disappointment to Team Anna. Although Narnaund is small, political parties in the past have attracted much bigger audiences at the Grain Market venue.

Even die-hard Anna supporters among the audience said Team Anna should not have singled out the Congress for this treatment. Balwan Singh of Petwad village said, “Anna Ji is number one person in the world, but Team Anna should only say that vote for a candidate who we feel will support the Jan Lokpal Bill.” Every voter was by now committed to one of the three main candidates and was unlikely to change his mind because of Team Anna’s appeal, he added.

Ram Mehar of Kheri Jalab village said Team Anna was leaving them confused: “I know Anna Ji is doing so much for our future. But all candidates are corrupt. Why are they not giving me an alternative?”

Chandigarh, October 8
Haryana Labour and Employment Minister Shiv Charan Lal Sharma today accused the striking workers at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant of violating the agreement signed with the company management that led to end of over a month-long standoff last week.

“The workers are moving away from the pact signed with the Maruti Suzuki management as a result of which the standoff ended,” Sharma said.

On October 1, the workers at the plant agreed to sign an agreement with the management that led to the end of the standoff that began on August 29.

As per the agreement, MSI agreed to conditionally take back 18 trainees who were suspended. However, it refused to take back 44 regular employees against whom disciplinary action was taken and who remained under suspension.

The workers, in turn, had agreed to sign the “good conduct bond”, which required them to declare that they would “not resort to go slow, intermittent stoppage of work, stay-in-strike, work-to-rule, sabotage or otherwise indulge in any activity, which would hamper the normal production in the factory”.

Sharma said the workers were again refusing to work, adding that it was unjustified when the matter was resolved after signing the agreement.

Asked about employees’ demand of taking back casual workers, he said casual workers would be absorbed as soon as work operations at the plant normalise.

“The work at Manesar plant has been hit due to month long strike...management will be taking back casual employees as soon as production gets expanded,” he said.

A team of the Haryana Labour Department yesterday met workers at the Manesar plant and assured them that the remaining casual labourers would be absorbed by October 14 in a phased manner.

Workers at the Manesar plant went on a strike yesterday afternoon demanding that their colleagues, who were on contract and left out in the pact that last week ended the 33-day-long stand-off, be taken back.

They were also demanding that the 44 permanent workers, who had been suspended, should also be taken back and no action should be taken against them. — PTI

Panipat, October 8
The SMS-based complaint system, through which complainants are able to reach top functionaries of the department by just sending an SMS, has finally started yielding results as a villager from Puthar village used this system to get an FIR registered in the district.

Balajit Singh of Puthar village in Israna segment said on September 21 last, he was attacked by a few motorcycle-borne persons on the Puthar-Mandi road while he was returning to his house in the evening. The miscreants robbed him of his bike and Rs 4,000.

Though he approached the local police station, no case was registered on his complaint for the next 15 days. He sent an SMS on 999600777, which is the official number of the complaint system launched recently for the public. Following this, the Israna police registered an FIR and started investigations.

The computer-based SMS complaint system was introduced in all the districts falling under the Rohtak range in July and was the brainchild of IG V Kamaraj, whose office had been receiving several complaints against police personnel for not registering FIRs.

Under the system, once an SMS is received against police inaction, the SHO concerned is asked to submit a written reply to the IG’s office explaining as to why no case has been registered on the complaint filed by the victim. Any SMS sent on the complaint number is received directly in the IG office, which is immediately forwarded to the district police chief concerned, in-charge cyber cell, DSP and SHO. These officials are required to initiate action within the stipulated time frame and failure in doing so calls for strict action against the erring officials.

The system is not only expected to up the efficiency of the Police Department but also provides the much needed relief to the victims and enables the department to initiate action against negligent police officials and make the police more people friendly.

Meanwhile, Baljit Singh said if the SMS complaint system was not in place, it would not have been possible for him to get the FIR registered. 

Sirsa, October 8
Good Samaritan acts by a few persons and the efforts of an NGO helped a distressed Assamese woman return home six months after she was lured away by an acquaintance on the promise of a job and sold her as a bonded labourer in a Sirsa village.

A few locals spotted Mariya at Dabwali bus stand yesterday where she was sitting in a corner and crying. One of them called up Rakesh Kumar Neena, president of an NGO, Dabwali Jan Sahara Sewa Sansthan, and informed him about the woman.

Neena took the woman to the city police station, when he came to know that it was a case of human trafficking.

Mariya, mother of four children, said in her statement recorded by the police that she hailed from Sunitpur district of Assam and was brought to Delhi by Rita and her husband Ranjit, who lived near her house.

The couple left her in an office in Delhi where she worked as a “sewadar” for five months, but was not paid anything.

Later, she was told that Rita and Ranjit had sold her as a bonded labourer in that office.

In Delhi, she came in contact with a youth, Suresh, who left her with big farmers at a village near Dabwali on the promise of a decent job.

However, she soon realised that she had been sold as a bonded labourer again.

She alleged that she was abused and tortured by her new master and was not paid any money for her work.

She, somehow, managed to give her master the slip and reached Dabwali covering some distance on foot and by taking lift in an auto later.

She said she did not remember the name of the village where she stayed or the farmer, who kept her as a bonded labourer.

The SHO, Maha Singh Ranga, said he gave her Rs 500 and a few other residents also gave her money for her return journey.

Neena arranged for Mariya’s rail ticket for her return journey to Assam.

The SHO said no FIR had been registered and only an entry in the daily dairy record had been made. 

Karnal, October 8
Inspector-General of Police Anant Kumar Dhul said yesterday that safety of girls would be ensured by focusing on crime against women.

Attributing the rise in crime against women to skewed sex ratio and degradation of moral values, Dhul said the police would deploy PCRs at all the sensitive and vulnerable points. Dhul, who took over the charge recently, told mediapersons that community policing would be started in all the four police districts of Karnal, Kurukshetra, Yamuna Nagar and Kaithal falling under the Karnal range and each district would have a model police station.

Meanwhile, in a bizarre incident, some miscreants attacked the police team and injured two cops when it raided a shop at the old Anaj Mandi on Thursday night.