Gohana (Sonepat), November 9
The dusty town in the Jat heartland is gearing up for tomorrow's mega Congress rally — billed as a show of strength for Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in the run up to the parliamentary and state Assembly elections next year.

The rally venue is spread over 90 acres with hoardings featuring Hooda, his MP son Deepender Hooda, AICC chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh dominating the venue. The other Congress leaders, including Shakeel Ahmed, Haryana Congress in charge, and HPCC acting president Phool Chand Mullana, however, find a less prominent place at the rally venue and on the hundreds of hoardings dotting the Panipat-Rohtak highway and other highways leading to the venue.

With state machinery stretched to its strength, the Hooda government is leaving no stone unturned to make the ‘Congress rally’ a success against the backdrop of fairly successful rallies of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendrea Modi at Rewari and INLD's November 1 rally at Kurukshetra.

"With parliamentary and Assembly elections round the corner, the rally is being organised to make the people aware of achievements of the Hooda government in the last about nine years and draw a roadmap for future," Gohana MLA Jagbir Malik, told The Trubune at the rally site.

The rally, to be addressed by Shakeel Ahmed, Asha Kumari, co-in charge of the Haryana Congress affairs, besides Hooda, is expected to see several populist announcements by the Chief Minister to beat anti-incumbency in the coming elections. Hooda had gone on record saying that ‘log hastay hue aayangee, kudete hue jayenge’ (people will come to the rally happy, but go back jumping with joy).

The top brass of the Haryana Police, led by Director-General SN Vashisht, was in strength at the rally venue to review the security arrangements. "As a large number of VIPs and other people are coming to the venue, elaborate security arrangements have been made in and around the rally venue," a senior police official said.

Meanwhile, Haryana BJP president Ram Bilas Sharma alleged that misuse of state machinery by the ruling Congress and expenditure of crores of rupees on holding of the rally was wastage of public money and a publicity stunt.

Ambala, November 9
Mayor Ramesh Mal today offered an apology before the Guru Granth Sahib for allegedly hurting the religious sentiments of the Sikh community.

Equating MLA Venod Sharma with other legislators during a public function here last evening, Mal had said: “Sharma had achieved so much for Ambala and if he be compared with other legislators of the state then it would not be wrong to say--sawa lakh se ek ladaun, toh Venod Sharma naam kehlaon.”

This did not go down well with the Sikhs, who raised a strong objection against Mal for using Guru Gobind Singh’s line to describe Venod Sharma. Mal tendered an apology before the Guru Granth Sahib at the Manji Sahib Gurdwara in the presence of SAD state president Sant Singh Kandhari and district president Ajeet Singh Sonda and some other leaders early this morning.

Later, speaking to media persons, Kandhari said as per the Sikh traditions, if anyone sought an apology before the Guru Granth Sahib, the community forgives him.

Another Sikh group led by SGPC member Harpal Singh Pali refused to accept this apology and asked Mal to again meet the Sikh Sangat at the Manji Sahib Gurdwara in the afternoon, where the Mayor again apologised before the Guru Granth Sahib.

Pali said they would bring the complete developments to the notice of the Akal Takht and would further follow whatever diktat was issued by the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs.

Sirsa, November 9
Seven new cases of suspected dengue have been reported from Bajekan, a village on the outskirts of Sirsa town.

Fiftyone positive cases of dengue had been detected in Sirsa so far, most of them in the past one month, confirmed Civil Surgeon Dr Surinder Nain. “We had sent 170 samples for testing and reports in 23 cases are awaited,” said the Civil Surgeon.

Harnam Singh, Jagga Singh, Kaka Singh, Mahinder Singh and three others from Bajekan village on the Hisar road of Sirsa town were today admitted to various private hospitals with symptoms of dengue.

Dr Nain said these were only suspected cases and confirmation could be made only after the ELISA test.

However, some private doctors maintained that the situation was much worse than what was being projected.

“The situation can be gauged from the fact that the demand of platelets, a blood component administered to dengue patients, has increased manifolds in two private blood banks of the town in the past one month,” a doctor said. He said almost all private doctors were receiving patients with the fever these days.

In their NS1 Antigen test, most of these patients test positive for dengue.

Sirsa, November 9
The Health Department and PHE Department are passing the buck on each other even as a three-and-a-half-year old girl has died and over one hundred residents have so far taken ill due to diarrhoea at Ellenabad town.

Dr Pramod Sharma, in charge of the Ellenabad community health centre, where over 50 patients have taken treatment so far and as many as 19 were still admitted, described the condition as gastroenteritis and said it was due to the supply of contaminated drinking water to the locality from where these patients were coming.

Angad Bishnoi, superintending engineer of the PHE Department, contradicted Dr Sharma’s statement and said new patients of gastroenteritis had been reporting even after the department had cut off the piped water supply to the affected area, the consumption of the left out adulterated Diwali sweets could be the reason behind the disease.— TNS

Jind, November 9
The state committee of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) today organised the Mazdoor Lalkar Rally here today.

Addressing a huge state-level rally of labourers and workers, senior national and state-level leaders lambasted the state government and Centre for following policies that had only added to the woes of the common man, especially the labour class.

Coming down heavily on both the state and Centre at the state-level rally, leaders of CITU charged the ruling and the main opposition parties of carrying on with the policies of plunder of the public wealth and exploitation of the masses at all levels.

Describing the rallies of the Congress and other main parties in the state as an attempt to misguide the common man, Left front leaders alleged the ‘anti-people’ policies and programmes had resulted in poverty and exploitation of the poor.

Speaking as the chief guest, MP and CITU general secretary Tapan Sen said the government had drastically reduced the subsidies for the poor whereas the rich, capitalists and the affluent were given rebate to the tune of crores of rupees in the past two years. Charging the state government of not revising the minimum wages in Haryana, he said the labourer today deserved a minimum of Rs 15,000 per month. He said the labour unrest at the Honda, Liberty, RICO and Maruti in the state were some of the examples of the police repression and atrocities. The Central Trade Unions and employees federations will gherao Parliament on December 12, he announced.

Hannan Moula, a former MP and joint secretary of the All-India Agricultural Workers’ Union, said with the government failing to provide social security to around 20 crore workers in the agricultural sector, poverty had made many commit suicide.

Chandigarh, November 9
The Haryana Government has turned down the Panipat Municipal Corporation’s proposal to sell encroached land to encroachers. Besides, 242 cases for the eviction of unauthorised occupants have now been bunched up and placed before the Joint Commissioner of the Panipat Municipal Corporation.

Information in this regard was furnished to the Punjab and Haryana High Court during the hearing of a petition filed in public interest by Deepak Tayal against the State of Haryana and other respondents.

As the case came up for hearing, affidavits filed by the Department of Urban Local Bodies and Panipat Municipal Corporation were placed before the Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Augustine George Masih.

It was asserted that the proposal whereby encroached land was to sold to the encroachers had been rejected. As the date of decision was not mentioned, the Bench directed the government to announce the date by filing an affidavit within a week.

The Bench also took on record the statement that 242 cases initiated under the Public Premises (eviction of unauthorised occupants) Act, 1971, have been “appropriately bunched”, and the Joint Commissioner, hearing those cases, would take about four months to complete the process of disposal.

The Bench also took note of the fact that cancellation report had been filed by the police in some cases on the basis that the land in dispute was not nazool land or the land situated beyond two miles of the municipal limits, which has escheated to the state government and has not already been appropriated for any purpose. It also includes other land the state government may make available for being transferred under the rules.

“We would like the authorities concerned to place before us the material qua the status of the land and as to what is the basis of the conclusion. Needful be done within two weeks,” the Bench directed before fixing the first week of December as the next date of hearing in the case.

Sirsa, November 9
The police has arrested three persons, including the branch manager of a private sector bank posted at Udaipur in Rajasthan, and recovered a major portion of the money duped from a woman associate professor of Government National Post-Graduate College after befriending her on Facebook.

The accused gave been identified as Deepak Gahlot, manager in the Gandhi Nagar branch of the private sector bank, Abdul Gaffar, a fish dealer, and Amar, an auto rickshaw driver, all from Udaipur town. The police has recovered Rs 6,28,920 out of the total Rs 6,78,920 duped from the professor.

However, the police is yet to arrest the main accused, who allegedly befriended the woman, a widow, posing as a merchant navy officer and duped her.

Sirsa, November 9
The police today recovered a body of a newborn from a vacant plot on the Rania road of Sirsa town. Police personnel from the Sabzi Mandi police post recovered the body of a baby girl and sent it to General Hospital here for postmortem.

The body, with its head severed, was lying in the garbage and stray dogs were feasting on it.— TNS

Kurukshetra, November 9
The police has arrested Gurpej Singh alias “Tej” a resident of Salpani Kalan from near his native village under the NDPS Act.

Poppy husk (3.060 kg) has been recovered from his possession. He was produced in the court here today, which remanded him to judicial custody.