Chandigarh, March 13
The opposition INLD today boycotted the Haryana assembly for the remaining period of the debate on the Governor’s address.

The decision was prompted by an attack launched by parliamentary affairs minister Randeep Singh Surjewala against INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala on the issue of the SYL canal.

Earlier, Speaker Raghubir Singh Kadiyan adjourned the sitting twice - first for 10 minutes and later for five minutes - to bring order in the House. As soon as question hour was over, the INLD demanded a discussion on the call attention notices given by them on atrocities against dalits and the power situation in the state. The INLD staged a noisy walkout when the Speaker refused to admit the notices.

After returning to the House, Chautala demanded that he should be allowed to speak on the Governor’s address since Congress members frequently interrupted the speech he made yesterday. The Speaker told Chautala that he had spoken for 54 minutes yesterday. In reply Chautala said he could actually speak only for about seven minutes. The Speaker could find out the truth from the records, he said. As verbal exchanges between Chautala and Kadiyan started on the issue, the other INLD members trooped into the well of the House and began raising slogans. INLD deputy leader Sushil Kumar Indora, a veteran of the Lok Sabha, was seen jumping up and down while giving some full-throated cries against the government. The Speaker then adjourned the House for 10 minutes.

When the House resumed its sitting, the same scene was repeated resulting in the adjournment of the proceedings for five minutes. When the House met again, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda requested the Speaker to allow Chautala to speak. Chautala opened his speech with a reference to the SYL canal. Kadiyan told him not touch the subject since it was pending in the Supreme Court. Chautala showed a clipping of The Tribune to the Speaker and said the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction over water issues.

Randeep Surjewala contested Chautala’s contention and said the INLD had jeopardised the construction of the SYL canal by having opposed the Rajiv-Longwal Accord and the interim order of the Eradi Tribunal on water sharing between Punjab and Haryana. Surjewala then said Chautala, whose hands were red with the blood of farmers (a reference to the deaths of farmers in police firing in Jind district during the Chautala regime), had no right to express concern for farmers. All hell broke loose at this point as the INLD members again trooped into the well of the House and started raising slogans. Ishwar Singh Palaka and Sushil Indora were leading them. In the melee Chautala again got up and showed the clipping of a report published in a Punjabi daily which had quoted Surjewala, while campaigning for a Congress candidate in the recently concluded assembly elections in Punjab, as having said that Haryana did not need the water of SYL canal.

As the INLD members continued with their antics, Congress member Randhir Singh urged the Speaker to remove the INLD legislators from the House. Independent MLA from Badli Naresh Kumar Sharma ran into the well of the House and confronted the INLD members by raising slogans against Chautala. Chief Minister Hooda himself got up and persuaded Sharma to return to his seat.

The Speaker then named Indora following which security personnel in plain clothes forcibly removed Indora from the House. The remaining INLD members also left the House with Indora.

Later, Chautala told reporters that Kadiyan was actually instigating the MLAs to attack him. The Chief Minister, who also came over to the press lounge, said Randeep Surjewala was simply giving a personal clarification and did not deserve the protest from the INLD members.

Hisar, March 13
In view of the high probability of betting on cricket World Cup matches, the local police authorities have prepared a novel scheme to nail the culprits by rewarding the informers.

Senior Superintendent of Police Arshinder Singh Chawla said here today that the persons informing the police about “satta” operations would be given an incentive of Rs 1,000.

“We will also give a certificate of appreciation to the informer,” he said, adding that the name and identity of the informer would be kept confidential, if desired. He, however, maintained that the cash reward would be given only in case the persons engaged in betting were nabbed and cash recovered from them.

Chawla asserted that the police personnel of the entire district had been directed to keep a close vigil on persons suspected of indulging in betting during the World Cup.

The SSP appealed to the local residents to inform the police about such activities going on in their neigbourhood.

Meanwhile, several “satta” operators have already gone underground or changed their mobile numbers to evade being caught.

Chandigarh, March 13
The Haryana government has spent over Rs 6 crore on renovation and repair in the secretariat building and official residences of ministers.

This was stated in the assembly today by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in reply to an unstarred question from INLD deputy leader Sushil Kumar Indora.

According to the Chief Minister's written reply, Rs 297.76 lakh was spent on repair and renovation of the secretariat.

Incidentally, the Chief Minister's own office and the rooms of his staff officers on the fourth floor of the secretariat were recently given a lavish facelift.

The amount quoted by the Chief Minister in his reply is believed to have been spent primarily on the renovation of the fourth floor office rooms only.

It was stated in the reply that Rs 366.64 lakh was spent on the repair and renovation of ministers' residences in Chandigarh and Panchkula.

In reply to a starred question asked by Ranbir Singh Mahendra, civil aviation minister Randeep Singh Surjewala said a proposal for setting up an international airport had been sent to the central government.

The written answer to this question revealed that three sites for airports identified in the Reliance SEZ in Gurgaon had been all found unviable since the sites fell within 10 km of the Sultanpur bird sanctuary.

In reply to a supplementary question asked by Karnal MLA Sumita Singh, Surjewala said two Cessna aircraft were being shipped to Haryana from the USA by the state government for training aspiring pilots.

Chandigarh, March 13
Is "Ravana" parliamentary or unparliamentary? This question arose when Congress MLA from Palwal Karan Singh Dalal was speaking after moving the motion of thanks on the Governor's address to the Haryana Assembly here yesterday.

Speaker Raghuvir Singh Kadian ruled that to call someone "Ravana" was not unparliamentary.

Dalal raised hackles in the INLD camp when he said as the Chief Minister INLD supremo Om Prakash Chautala was as arrogant as the mythical character of the Ramayana.

The INLD members were immediately on their legs.

Deputy leader of the INLD legislature party Sushil Indora referred to the name of Ravana. The Speaker said Ravana was a highly learned person and his name could not be termed as unparliamentary. 

Chandigarh, March 13
The press lounge of the Haryana assembly today witnessed a "mini session" after the main opposition party, the Indian National Lok Dal, decided to boycott the debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor for addressing the House, in protest against what it called the muzzling of the opposition by the ruling Congress.

Both leader of the House Bhupinder Singh Hooda, accompanied by his parliamentary affairs minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, and INLD leader Om Prakash Chautala were present at the "mini session". Chautala was accompanied by, among others, former finance minister Sampat Singh, the thinktank of his party.

First it was the INLD team which reached the press lounge. Chautala said since he was not allowed to speak in the House by the treasury benches, he had come to communicate to the people through the press.

Chautala, supported by Sampat Singh, said only the issue of constitutional validity of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, was before the Supreme Court in a presidential reference and not the issue of the construction of the SYL canal.

Taking a u-turn from what his elder son had been saying, Chautala said his party was never opposed to the construction of the Hansi-Butala link canal, which would take about 2,000 cusecs of water to southern Haryana.

The senior Chautala said all that his party wanted was that the government should have taken the requisite permission from the Central Water Commission before commencing the construction of the canal.

He quoted from a newspaper report to say that Randeep Surjewala, while campaigning in the Punjab elections, had said that Haryana did not need SYL water.

As Chautala was still talking, in walked the Hooda team. The two leaders exchanged a few pleasantries before Chautala left the field for Hooda.

Hooda told him that he had to make a personal request to the Speaker to allow the INLD leader to speak on the Governor's address today also despite having spoken yesterday. But, he said, Chautala did not speak because he and his colleagues wanted to disrupt the proceedings of the House.

Hooda claimed that Chautala and his colleagues had nothing to say in the Vidhan Sabha. Therefore, they wanted to mislead the people of Haryana by telling lies on the floor of the House. He said the Hansi-Butana canal would be completed by November this year.

The Chief Minister said AICC president Sonia Gandhi would decide who would be the party's candidate for the Rajya Sabha poll. He would shortly visit Delhi to know the party high command's decision.

Randeep denied that he had ever said that Haryana did not require its share in the river waters. He said he had pleaded the interests of the state before a TV channel even when the Punjab election campaign was on.

He said Ajay Chautala had threatened a civil war on the Hansi-Butana canal in Gohana and then in Kaithal. 

Chandigarh, March 13
Appalled at slack investigations into the latest case of Dalit atrocity in Salwan village of Karnal, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Right (NCDHR) today demanded that Haryana be declared an atrocities-prone area under Section 21 (VII) of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989.

The demand came in the wake of five cases of mass violence against Dalits in Haryana over the last year. Attacks have happened at Gohana, Budram, Mohammadpur, Jaffergarh, and Dahola and most recently at Sawlan.

The Salwan incident took place on March 1 following the murder of a Rajput. Accused in the case being two Dalits, the incident led to a violent attack in which 200 Dalit houses were burnt and destroyed.

About 25 Dalits, including women and children, had to be shifted to the nearest trauma centre after the attack which caused 75 per cent of Salwan’s Dalit population to flee for fear of reprisal. In its fact-finding report the NCDHR has said that the police reached the spot three hours after the attack in which the phone lines and electricity supply to Dalits’ houses was cut off.

No wonder till now, the fugitives have not returned as the criminal justice system has failed to safeguard their lives. No one has been arrested, nor has relief package been worked out.

At Ambedkar Bhavan today, the Dalit organisation representatives debated the increasing marginalisation of Dalits in the name of caste and resolved to seek legal recourse to safeguard fundamental rights of their people. Following the day-long deliberations, the gathering formed a joint action committee, which will now take up the case at the highest level in the state.

The gathering also passed a resolution demanding compensation and rehabilitation for the families uprooted in Salwan. It sought legal action against perpetrators of the crime, khap panchayats and officers who tend to force compromises through the so-called peace committees.

Vincent Manoharan, general secretary, NCDHR, who has reported the Salwan incident to the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination, told The Tribune that his organisation was working to hold the state accountable in such cases of violence against Dalits.

“In Haryana, five cases of mass violence involving murder, rape, maiming, loot and arson were reported during the last year. All these cases fit into a pattern. Dalits are attacked, their houses ransacked, their properties looted. Protection is nil. The result is that Dalits leave their houses, never to return. And no one is bothered. But we won’t allow that to happen. That’s what we have formed a committee to push forward our agenda of safeguarding the life of Dalits.”

The NCDHR and its regional partners have also demanded that the khap panchayats be declared illegal in Haryana. Joint Action Committee members will meet the Haryana Governor and CM in this connection tomorrow.