INLD leader joins BJP
Fatehabad, March 16
The Bharatiya Janata Party today received a shot in the arm when a prominent Indian National Lok Dal leader of the district, Mr Joginder Singh Virk, joined the party. Mr Virk was the general secretary of the district unit of the INLD and was a long time associate of the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala.

Sampat criticises BJP, Congress
Hisar, March 16
The Finance Minister, Mr Sampat Singh, on Sunday accused the BJP and the Congress of trying to diminish the importance of regional parties at the national level.

Narain Singh quits Congress
Ekta Shakti releases manifesto

Kurukshetra, March 16
The Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Prabdhandak Committee (ad-hoc) has threatened to take control of the historical shrine (Chevin Patshahi) situated here on April 11 in protest against the discriminatory policies of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC). A decision regarding this was taken at a meeting of the HSGPC held here this morning.

A sizable section of Sikhs of the state had recently formed this parallel body on ad-hoc basis and had sought amendment in the All-India Gurdwara Act-1925 so as to give recognition to the HSGPC to legally manage the affairs of gurdwaras in Haryana.

Talking to TNS after the meeting, Sardar Harbans Singh Dachar, chief patron of the HSGPC, said the SGPC had failed to constitute a separate managing committee to manage the administrative affairs of gurdwaras in Haryana.

The Sikhs who gathered here also slammed Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra president of SGPC, for continuing on the post of president even after the completion of the present term of five-years of the SGPC General House. “He cannot be accepted as the president of SGPC after the completion of five-year term of the General House”, said Mr Dachar.

According to Mr Jagdish Singh Jhinda, president of HSGPC, there were 74 gurdwaras under the control of SGPC in the state and the earnings from these were being drained out of the state. “Nothing is being spent for the welfare of society or the Sikhs in particular in Haryana, he said.

He said Mr Tohra had laid the foundation stone of Miri Piri Medical College at Shahbad in 1992 but no progress has been made in this regard till now.

Similarly, the Haryana Sikhs had handed over the building of the newly constructed Mata Sundri College for Women, Nissing, to the SGPC but it had not started functioning till now.

The medical college project was estimated to cost Rs 100 crore but only Rs 4 crore had been spent in a span of 11 years.

Gharaunda, March 16
The Chief Minister of Haryana and the president of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Mr Om Prakash Chautala, who addressed a party rally here this afternoon, targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress and said the time had come to teach them a lesson.

Claiming that the INLD would win all 10 parliamentary seats, he said the Congress should first control the growing factionalism within the party while BJP’s ‘feel good’ show had become a flop show in Haryana and elsewhere in the nation. He also lashed out at former Chief Minister Chaudhary Bansi Lal and said his dream of a comeback to power would never come true.

Highlighting the development works initiated by the state government, he said the BJP had never come forward to support the government. Instead, the local leaders of the BJP were involved in leg pulling while the government was trying to implement people-oriented policies and programmes.

He said the hue and cry being raised by the BJP leaders regarding the implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT) was just a farce. “In fact, NDA Government at the Centre is forcing the states to implement VAT”, he said.

Mr Chautala also lashed out at the Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, saying, “Sonia Gandhi roadshow karke Bharat ki dharti ko napaak kar rahi hai”. He also satirically commented upon the Bharat Uday Yatra of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, and said it would not be able to prevent the BJP debacle in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP-led NDA government had been pursuing the economic policies of the Congress party which were prepared during its rule in 1991 by the then Union Agriculture Minister Balram Jakhar and the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr Gowda said at an election meeting here yesterday.

At least 8000 farmers had committed suicide in the country the past 13 years, he alleged.

Lashing out at the BJP-led NDA Government, Mr Gowda said while it is was reducing the air fare, it had failed to reduce the rates of the products needed by the agriculture sector in the country.

Referring to Haryana politics, Mr Gowda said the late Devi Lal had made a “great mistake” by building up the BJP in politics in the state.

Fatehabad, March 16
The Bharatiya Janata Party today received a shot in the arm when a prominent Indian National Lok Dal leader of the district, Mr Joginder Singh Virk, joined the party. Mr Virk was the general secretary of the district unit of the INLD and was a long time associate of the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala.

Mr Virk announced his decision to join the saffron party in the presence of Mr Ganeshi Lal, president of the BJP state unit and Mr Ranjit Singh, a younger brother of Mr Chautala, who has recently joined the BJP after quitting the Congress.

Addressing mediapersons, Mr Ganeshi Lal claimed that the BJP was growing strong in Haryana and would win all 10 seats in Haryana on its own. He claimed that the Congress had lost its ground in Haryana while the popularity of the ruling INLD had taken a nosedive during the last four years.

He ruled out the possibility of any electoral alliance with the Haryana Vikas Party and said the party would contest parliamentary elections in Haryana on its own. He said the main contest in Haryana would be between the Congress and the BJP and added that the HVP and the INLD would fare very badly in the elections.

Mr Ganeshi Lal also addressed party workers at the local Shri Ram Seva Samiti dharamshala.

Hisar, March 16
The Finance Minister, Mr Sampat Singh, on Sunday accused the BJP and the Congress of trying to diminish the importance of regional parties at the national level.

Addressing a meeting of party workers here, he referred to the recent statement of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Lal Krishan Advani, that people should consider voting for Congress candidates instead of regional parties if they didn’t like the BJP. He alleged that leaders of both the parties had a secret understanding on this issue.

He said the BJP-led government at the Centre had discriminated against Haryana during the past four years.

Jind, March 16
Mr Narain Singh, former MP and a senior Congress leader, announced his decision to quit the Congress at a meeting of his supporters held here on Sunday. He consulted his supporters before announcing his decision.

Chandigarh, March 16
The Ekta Shakti today released its manifesto, promising Rs 500 per month as an old-age pension.

The party, which was floated recently by a bureaucrat-turned-politician, Mr Varinder Verma, would contest the Karnal, Ambala and Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seats. Mr Verma said Mr Raj Kumar Sharma, Mr Ranbir Singh Bhumak and Mr Jagmit Singh Saini had been nominated from these seats, respectively.

Mr Dalal showed to newsmen a slip with “victory” written on it. He claimed that such slips were being given by officers of the two departments allegedly after charging Rs 1,500 per vehicle per month. The vehicles were not checked at any barrier on producing such slips.

Urging the Governor to order a CBI inquiry into the racket, Mr Dalal said if his allegations were found to be false, he would resign as an MLA.

Karnal, March 16
The cultivation of satha, the short-duration paddy variety is on the rise for the past few years. This results in extra profits to farmers with double crops in one cropping season.

The water level in the district has gone down by nine feet in the past two decades, forcing the farmers to install submersible pumps.

Harmesh Singh Cheema, a farmer of Darar village, told TNS, “flaws in the procurement policy of the government have compelled the small and marginal farmers to cultivate satha paddy”. He revealed that government agencies did not purchase even 10 per cent of the paddy produce from the farmers of his village. So they were constrained to sell their produce to the private rice mills at a comparatively lesser rate than the minimum support price.

More farmers were being attracted to the short-durations varieties for commercial reasons.

Another farmer of this village, Balbir Singh, reveals, “Of the 2,500 acres of cultivable land in the village, 500 acres was sown under short duration varieties of paddy last year.”

Mr Cheema said the small and marginal farmers were hit by the low compensation given for basmati paddy. Therefore, they were attracted towards double yields in one cropping season. He said that the cost inputs in agriculture increased many folds in the past decade, making this profession hardly viable.

A survey conducted by The Tribune revealed that there was a huge difference of power tariffs in the district differing from village to village. This was due to the new policy of the state government to charge rates in accordance to the water level of the village. In Darar village, the power corporation charged Rs 105 per horsepower of water pump while the rates applicable at Nilokheri, Jundla, Indri and other blocks of the district varied from Rs 50 to Rs 80 per horsepower.

People of this village also alleged that the power tariff was much higher in their area because they did not vote in favour of the INLD candidate during the last assembly elections. An independent candidate was elected from here.

The villagers said that the ruling politicians were harassing the farmers in the Opposition-strong areas by justifying that in Pehowa (Kurukshetra), the home constituency of the Agriculture Minister, Mr Jaswinder Singh Sandhu, just 40 km from here the power tariff was lowest at Rs 45 per horsepower.

Another interesting fact came to light after interacting with the farmers of this village. The Pusa-44 variety developed and recommended by the regional centre of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) and the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) located here was least purchased by the government agencies during the past few years, whereas, in Punjab more farmers were going in for this variety in the past few years following good yield and quality.

Chandigarh, March 16
A spokesman of the Haryana Police denied today that Mr M.S. Malik was misusing his official position as the DGP in favour of his wife, Krishna, who has been nominated by the ruling INLD as its candidate from the Sonepat Lok Sabha seat.

He was commenting on the demand made by Prof Ganeshi Lal, President of the Haryana BJP, that Mr Malik should proceed on leave on his own because the police, he alleged, was helping Mrs Malik. He had also alleged that plain clothesmen were accompanying Mrs Malik.

The spokesman said the allegations were being levelled to tarnish the image of the DGP, who, he said, was well conversant with the law and the code of conduct issued by the Election Commission. Detailed instructions had been issued to the field officers for ensuring implementation of the code of conduct. As directed by the Election Commission the leave of all policemen had been cancelled. No policeman would be deployed in his home district.

Hisar, March 16
The Judicial Magistrate, Mr Ajay Tewtia, today remanded a teacher of a private school in judicial custody for 14 days on charges of raping a student.

According to the police, the accused, Anil Kumar, had allegedly eloped with the student on March 2 and raped her. The police had registered a case against him on the complaint of her father.

He was arrested this morning and produced in the court.

In other case, a local court today remanded a person in police custody for five days in connection with a murder of gangster Mahabir Kanwari.

Mahabir, a resident of nearby Kanwari village and involved in various cases of murder, extortion and thefts in Haryana, Punjab and New Delhi, was shot dead by four car-borne persons near the Civil Hospital here on December 29 when he along with his friend Virender Singh was on the way to Barwala in a car.

Hisar, March 16
At least 46 cases of copying were detected by flying squad teams in the annual examination of Plus Two classes of the Haryana Board of School Education, Bhiwani, in the district yesterday. Board officials have asked the local police authorities to deploy more force at six examination centres in the rural areas to ensure the smooth conduct of examination.

According to reports, flying squad teams raided several centres during the examination of English paper yesterday. Ten students were caught in the examination centre of Kheri Kharbala village in the district. Eight students were booked in various examination centres of Adampur Subdivision. The squad also detected four cases of copying each at different examination centres of Hisar and Hansi. Five cases were detected from Kulari village while two students were booked at Umra village. The flying squad teams also detected cases of unfair means in the centres of Kharak Punia, Dhobi, Luhari Ragho and Landhari villages.

Karnal, March 16
A teenaged girl was killed and two others were seriously injured when a truck loaded with sand overturned on the national highway near Nilokheri, 15 km from here, last evening.

According to reports received here today, the girls were moving alongside the road when the truck overturned and fell on them. While Veena, a resident of Takhana village, died on the spot, the police rescued two girls from beneath the truck. They were admitted to the local civil hospital in a serious condition.

The incident disrupted the traffic on the highway for a considerable time.

In another road accident, Madan Lal, a school teacher posted at Hassanpur near here, was killed when his motor cycle was hit by a Canter on the Meerut road last evening.

Panipat, March 16
Two persons today shot at a 27-year-old cotton yarn agent with a countrymade pistol and took away his motor cycle near Devi Lal Park here. The incident took place in the afternoon when Raj Kumar was going on his motor cycle to deliver cotton yarn to woollen mills.

Rohtak, March 16
The Diploma Engineers Association, Haryana, has demanded that the vacant posts of subdivisional engineer (SDE) in various departments should be filled by promoting junior engineers.

In a statement issued here today, Mr Yashpal Dhull, president of the association, said the government had already enhanced promotion quota for diploma holders in the Irrigation and Public Health Departments from 43 to 50 per cent. A large number of posts had been vacant and several SDEs were holding charge of more than one subdivision.

He said the promotion would not put any financial burden on the government since the eligible JEs were already drawing more than the basic salary of the SDE. Therefore, it was merely a question of giving them work as per their seniority.