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Pratap seeks probe against Bhajan Lal Rebel may hit prospects of Congress candidate 160 left in
fray in
Haryana Candidates
avoid local issues in Ambala Haryana to print 3 lakh tender
votes |
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Blind
plan demos from May 3 Ex-Governor of
Tripura seeks votes for Abhay 2 leaders join INLD
IMA seeks national agenda on health Youths kill
chowkidar, take away cash Undertrial shot inside jail Couple killed in accident
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Pratap seeks probe against Bhajan Lal Chandigarh, April 27 Mr Pratap Singh, who released copies of his affidavit given to the Superintendent of Police, Sirsa, on April 13, alleged that the police officer had refused to register a case against Mr Bhajan Lal unless she was permitted to do so by the Chief Minister. Alleging that Mr Bhajan Lal and Mr Chautala were in league with each other, Mr Pratap Singh said if his allegation was wrong, the Chief Minister should order the Superintendent of Police, Sirsa, to register a case against the former Chief Minister under the Prevention of Corruption Act. In his nine-page affidavit, Mr Pratap Singh, a former MLA, gave details of the property allegedly acquired by Mr Bhajan Lal after he became a minister and then the Chief Minister. Mr Pratap Singh claimed that if the inquiry against Mr Bhajan Lal was entrusted to an independent agency like the CBI, more moveable and immoveable properties owned by him would be unearthed. He also promised to produce evidence in support of his complaint. Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Haryana Congress, Mr Sat Pal Kaushik, has termed Mr Pratap Singh's allegations as "a political gimmick". He said Mr Pratap Singh was in the habit of levelling false allegations against the political rivals of his brother at the time the elections. He said similar allegations levelled against Mr Bhajan Lal in the past were investigated and found to be unsubstantiated. Mr Kaushik said all members of the Chautala family were one, though they kept on fighting with each other to mislead their rivals.
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Rebel may hit prospects of Congress candidate Karnal, April 27 There are 20 candidates left in the fray. They are Arvind Kumar Sharma of the Congress, Ashok Kumar Arora of the INLD, Ashok Kumar Kashyap of the BSP, I.D. Swami of the BJP, Angrej Singh Joon of the Rashtriya Garib Dal, Premvati Kashyap, alias Premo, of the Federal Congress of India, Mahendra Singh of the CPI (MLL), Raghu Mal Bhatt of the Samajwadi Party, Raj Kumar Sharma of the Ekta Shakti, Ram Chandra Jhangra of the HVP, Roshan Lal Bindal of the Shiv Sena, Surendra Singh Hooda of the Lok Janshakti Party and Rishi Ram Gupta, Kuldip Sharma, Duli Chand Malik, Naresh Sachdeva, Mahendra Singh Rana, Raj Kumar Kashyap, Rajbir Singh Chauhan, Ram Mehar Singh, all independents. The BJP candidate, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs I.D. Swami, seems to have the edge over his rivals as far as the poll campaign is concerned. The delayed allotment of ticket to Mr Arvind Sharma by the Congress high command has left him behind the others in poll campaign. To make matters worse for the Congress a rebel leader, Mr Kuldip Sharma, whose father had represented this constituency four times, has filed his nomination papers. The ruling INLD’s candidate and Transport Minister, Mr Ashok Arora, is facing the anti-incumbency factor and his campaign is yet to pick up. He is mainly depending upon the Punjabi vote bank. However, the Punjabi vote bank is divided among the Congress, INLD, BJP, HVP and Independent candidate Kuldip Sharma. HVP candidate Ram Chandra Jhangra and Ekta Shakti’s Raj Kumar Sharma have already completed their first round of the constituency and are trying hard to clinch the seat. These two cannot be underestimated as they can be the choice of a major section of the voters who are annoyed with Congress, BJP and the INLD. Infighting and factionalism have always been the bane of the Congress. Those who do not enjoy good terms with state Congress president are indirectly working against the official nominee, Mr Arvind Sharma. No senior leader of the Congress, including Mr Bhajan Lal, has so far visited Karnal. The problem seems to be mounting for the official candidate of the Congress as the rebel candidate, Mr Kuldip Sharma, is projecting himself as the “real Congress man.” The BJP is also facing problems in retaining the urban vote bank and making a dig in the rural electorate. Apart from ruining the prospects of the official candidate of Congress, the rebel candidate is likely to attract a sizeable section of the urban electorate, thereby, disturbing the political calculations of Mr Swami as well. The BJP candidate hopes that the visits by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani may better his prospects in the final leg of the campaign. |
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160 left in fray in Haryana Chandigarh, April 23 Among women, the youngest contestants are Geeta Hooda, the estranged daughter-in-law of Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Bimla, both of whom are contesting the Rohtak seat. Geeta is contesting on the BSP ticket, while Bimla is contesting on the BRP ticket. The final list of 160 candidates, including eight women, contesting the 10 Lok Sabha seats in the state, was released today. With as many as 160 candidates left in the poll fray in Haryana, the state electoral office today released the final list of candidates. The maximum number of contestants are from Rohtak where 24 are in the fray, while the minimum number is from Sirsa where there are just eight contestants. Ambala has 13 contestants, Bhiwani 17, Faridabad 14, Hisar 16, Kurukshetra 15, Karnal 20, Mahendergarh 14 and Sonepat 20. The total number of Independent candidates is 76. The highest number of Independents, 13, is in Rohtak, whereas the lowest, two, is in Sirsa. Only 54 candidates are below 40 years of age. There are 127 men and seven women in the general category. Of the total nominations received, the papers of 35 candidates, including seven women, were found invalid, while 36, including five women, had later withdrawn their nominations. As many as 114 candidates, including 97 men and three women, belonging to general category and 14 men belonging to the Scheduled Castes, had contested the last general election in Haryana in 1999. |
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Candidates
avoid local issues in Ambala
Panchkula, April 27 Ms Selja, being projected as an “outsider” by her opponents for having shifted from the Sirsa constituency, has gone on record saying that she would seek votes in the name of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and the anti-incumbency factor at play in Haryana and at the Centre. Meanwhile, during an interaction with the Press she had difficulty in airing views on the local issues. However, apart from the opponents, she is facing factionalism within the party. Already there are reports that certain supporters of the Kalka MLA, Mr Chander Mohan, were not putting their heart and soul into the Congress campaign. While claiming that the Congress would put up a united front during the poll, she said she would understand local issues if elected. Battling anti-incumbency, it is going to be tough going for Mr Kataria, who won the seat in alliance with the INLD in 1999. Avoiding the local issues, he prefers to seek votes in the name of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In its proposed audio-visual “media rath”, the BJP has decided to give prominence to the message of Mr Vajpayee in a bid to woo the voters. Claims of the INLD that it had done much more for rural areas notwithstanding, its nominee Balwant Singh is at his wits’ end when asked about the local issues. Declining to make any pre-poll promises, he assures that he would look into the local issues if elected. The position of the Mr Nagra, who recently joined the HVP to contest the Ambala seat, is no different. A former Lok Sabha MP from Ambala and Haryana BSP chief, Mr Nagra is banking on the clean image of the HVP chief, Mr Bansi Lal, to get votes. However, local issues like remunertive sugarcane prices, hill-area status for Morni hills and an economic package for the HMT seemed to have escaped the attention of the candidates.
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Haryana
to print 3 lakh tender
votes Chandigarh, April 27 Besides, there will be two reserve
ballots for each EVM. The reserve ballots will be used in case a voter
makes some mistake in casting his vote on the EVM and the vote is not
registered. Each EVM will also have one ballot paper pasted on it to
indicate the name and symbol of the candidates. Official sources said
that at the district level ballot papers were also being printed for
use as postal ballots by Army personnel. They added that with the
introduction of EVMs, the phenomenon of rejected votes (votes rejected
due to improper folding of the ballot papers and other reasons) would
disappear. Karnal and Rohtak were the two constituencies where voting
was conducted through EVMs during the last elections. The only votes
rejected in these constituencies were those which were cast through
postal ballot, the sources said.
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Blind plan
demos from May 3 Chandigarh, April 27 Mr Jagjit Singh Saini, general secretary of the sangh, said they would hold sit-ins at Bhiwani, Kurukshetra and Panipat to air their demand. He said they had chosen Bhiwani because the Chief Minister's son, Mr Ajay Chautala, was contesting from the constituency, Kurukshetra because the CM's younger son, Mr Abhey Chautala, was contesting from there and Panipat because it was part of the Karnal Lok Sabha constituency from where the Haryana Transport Minister, Mr Ashok Arora, was the INLD candidate. "We have been agitating for the past seven months. We shall like to ask the ruling party why it is not paying any heed to our demand," Mr Saini said. He, however, added that the sangh would not offer its support to any other party.
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Ex-Governor of
Tripura seeks votes for Abhay Yamunanagar, April 27 Mr Sultan Singh sought votes for Mr Abhay Singh Chautala, the Indian National Lok Dal nominee. Mr Sultan Singh undertook a tour of around 12 villages of the constituency and appealed to the people to cast their vote. Last evening, Dr M.L. Ranga, the Haryana Health Minister, went on a door-to-door campaign in Tejli, Shadipur, Naharpur, Tigri, Karehra, Panjpur and Gulabgarh villages of the district and requested the voters to extend their support to Mr Chautala.
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2 leaders join INLD Yamunanagar, April 27 Mr Sher Singh Badshami, the president of the state INLD, welcomed them. Mr Badshami criticised Mr Naveen Jindal for reportedly stating that his family had no plans to establish any industrial unit in the area. |
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IMA seeks national agenda on health Ambala, April 27 The salient feature of the IMA policy was that the support should be for candidates with character and who kept national interest above party politics. The policy states that “We must poll our vote. All members of our families, entire staff and those persons who can be influenced by us should poll their votes. We will support candidates who have worked for the policies of the IMA. Attempt should be made to identify health-friendly and IMA-friendly candidates in each constituency. The IMA would support candidates who make health an important agenda of their manifesto and commitments.” The statement makes it clear that the IMA shall remain “apolitical.” “We want compulsory secondary education of the girl child, extended universal immunisation of children, health education for all, creation of all-India medical services and a national health commission. There should also be promotion of public-private partnership in health and involvement of the private sector in national health programmes, inclusion of the IMA in advisory bodies for health and health-related matters of central and state governments,” Dr Jaspal stated. |
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Youths kill
chowkidar, take away cash Hisar, April 27 The police has registered a case.
According to the police, the youths and asked the salesman to show some pieces of mobile sets. They then suddenly took out pistols and took away cash cards worth Rs 50,000, 10 mobile sets and Rs 20,000 from the shop.
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Undertrial shot inside jail Sonepat, April 27 Jasbir was a member of a criminal gang headed by Krishan Mehndipuria, the police said. The victim was involved in three cases of murder and the assailants were also lodged in the same jail for various cases of murder, kidnapping and extortion of money, the police said. The DGP (Prisons), Mr A.S. Bhatotia, has ordered an inquiry into the incident. Officials of the jail were pulled up for their failure to check the smuggling of firearms by the prisoners inside the jail.
— PTI
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Couple killed in accident Karnal, April 27 The driver has been arrested and a case has been registered. The bodies were handed over to the family after a post-mortem examination.
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