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Gohana Bypoll
Rohtak, May 15 The general feeling among the people of this assembly segment is that the Chief Minister, whose prestige is at stake in this byelection, is virtually contesting it himself. Although all three byelections scheduled to be held on May 22 are crucial for the ruling Congress party, Gohana assumes special significance for Hooda due to certain factors. First, parts of the Gohana constituency fall in Rohtak parliamentary segment, which is represented by the Chief Minister’s son Deepender Singh Hooda. Secondly, Rohtak happens to be the hometown of Hooda and Gohana constituency is close to his own constituency, Kiloi. Hence, before proving his hold over Indri or Adampur, consolidating his position in Gohana is a must for Hooda. No wonder, the Chief Minister, as well as his son, are leaving no stone unturned in ensuring a convincing victory from Gohana. While both have toured the areas falling under the constituency, Hooda senior is scheduled to address a rally at Gohana on May 20. Senior leaders of the ruling party, including several present and former ministers and MLAs, have also been campaigning for the Congress nominee. Interestingly, Congress candidate Jagbir Singh Malik, who is facing stiff competition from INLD nominee Dr K.C.Bangar, has not much to do in this election. According to party insiders and constituency sources, Bhupinder and Deepender Hooda are engaged in hectic campaigning while Malik has adopted a rather laidback attitude. His only job seems to be apologizing before electors at public meetings and asserting that it is actually Hooda’s election. On the other hand, the INLD candidate, Dr K.C.Bangar, is leaving nothing to chance. Bangar, as well as INLD leadership, are contesting the bypoll in a very systematic and well-planned manner. Specific duties have been assigned to INLD cadres, some of whom are touring villages and others are stationed in particular pockets of their influence. INLD chief commander Om Prakash Chautala and his sons Ajay and Abhey have also been personally canvassing in the Gohana segment. The Haryana Janhit Congress and its candidate Dharampal Singh Malik are trying their level best to make the contest triangular, but are finding the task quite difficult. As regards BJP nominee Pradeep Sangwan and Congress rebel-turned-independent Umesh Sharma, they are more likely to go down in as “also ran”. However, the electors of the constituency have kept their cards close to their chest. They have not disclosed which party or candidate is close to their heart. In the given situation, the margin of victory is expected to be low in view of the tough contest. It is this factor which is giving many a sleepless night to the candidates and their party leaderships.
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Bundle of ironies stares voters in Adampur
Hisar, May 15 They are not even registered as voters of this constituency. The three contenders are: Sampat Singh of the Indian National Lok Dal, Ranjit Singh of the Congress and Swami Raghvanand of the Bhartiya Janata Party. They are pitted against former CM Bhajan Lal, who has been winning from here for forty years. Voters are wondering - what an irony! Those who seek their support cannot even begin the charity at home by voting for themselves. Is this the wily Bhajan Lal's deft handling of his pocket borough that he has not allowed any serious opponents to gain any ground here? What else can explain these parties' failure to find suitable candidates from within the constituency. And yet, they are seeking to own up Adampur, thanks to constitutional provisions. There are other ironical aspects of the byelection. Firstly, is the irony of Bhajan Lal's family. His nephew Dura Ram, the Congress legislator and parliamentary secretary from neighbouring Fatehabad, is opposing him this time. The irony does not end here. Bhajan lal's elder son Chander Mohan, deputy chief minister, too is not campaigning for his father this time. He too is comfortably ensconced in the Congress. He too owes his present designation to his father as the office was given to him to placate Bhajan Lal when Bhupinder Singh Hooda was nominated CM. Ironically again, there are doubts lurking in the minds of the voters. People are asking whether Hooda and the Congress leadership of Hisar seriously want Ranjit Singh to win the seat for the Congress and in turn make him a hero who, if successful, will be the first politician to defeat Bhajan Lal in 40 odd years. But Hooda's instructions to his partymen are loud and clear - campaign for the party nominee and forget personal and political rivalries. The same is true of INLD's Sampat Singh. A staunch Chautala family loyalist, he has braved many a political storm in his 30 years of political life. But again people ask whether INLD supremo Om Parkash Chautala will want him to become a hero by defeating Bhajan
Lal. These are testing times for the Haryana's top politicians and their parties. Their futures lie in the hands of the Adampur voters. Whose future is safe in these one lakh odd pairs of hands will be known soon. |
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Catch 22 situation for Dura Ram
Fatehabad, May 15 The Congress leader, who is a nephew of former Haryana CM and Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) candidate from Adampur Bhajan Lal, is still undecided on how to wriggle out of the situation he finds himself embroiled in. Though he had already deserted his political mentor while siding with the CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda, he may not have ever thought that he will have to pass through test to loyalty early in his career. Dura Ram was a political nonentity, when Bhajan Lal projected him as a local leader here in the early eighties. Though he had been trying to get Congress ticket during every assembly elections after that, but his turn came when the Congress had to contest a byelection in May 2003.
Bhajan Lal, who was HPCC president at that time, was asked by the party high command to field his own family member for the election. Though Dura Ram lost that byelection, he retuned to the state assembly in the 2005 generalelections. But when Bhajan Lal was outsmarted by Hooda in the race for the chair of CM, Dura Ram preferred to keep a low profile. Then gradually, the Congress leader joined Hooda camp and was elevated to the post of parliamentary secretary. To be fair to Dura Ram, he did not desert Bhajan Lal out of choice but to much extent due to compulsions.
As a matter fact, Kuldeep Bishnoi's advent on the political arena has distanced him from Bhajan Lal. Nonetheless, things were going fine for Dura Ram in the government till the Adampur byelection was announced and the party directed him to campaign for the party candidate Ranjit Singh. His predicament is that in case he campaigns against his uncle, his move will not be taken kindly by his Bishnoi community. And if he does not follow the directives of the Congress party, he may have to face a bleak political future. When contacted, he said he has been working for the victory of Congress candidates and have just returned from a tour of Indri assembly constituency.
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Sunny side up
Yamunanagar, May 15 As per sources in the agriculture department, this season farmers planted sunflower over 4,500 hectare. Last season the plantation was spread only on 1,500 hectare. Sunflower attracted a large number of farmers in Sadhoura block (ghaar area). As per an estimate, 1,300 hectare of land was under sunflower plantation in Sadhoura block only. In Mustfabad and Bilaspur blocks of the district there was 1,900 hectare under sunflower. There were several reasons which made farmers to go for the sunflower plantation. The main reason was that they expected higher prices in wake of the rising prices of edible oils. Most of the farmers chose to plant 'pioneer 6457 and 6460' varieties of the crop. These two varieties are ready in less time and output is also more. "By planting these varieties we hope to harvest anything between 20 to 25 quintals a hectare,” said Raj Kumar Saini, a farmer. According to him wheat and paddy were also lucrative crops but he would be going for sunflower next year also if his calculations turned out to be correct. Another reason the farmers went for the crop was that they could not clear their fields of sugarcane crop in time because the Saraswati sugar mill started crushing only in December. By then it was too late to plant wheat in the fields. The cold wave, which had hit the area early this year, also damaged 'munda' sugarcane and farmers replaced it with sunflower. Given the right conditions, sunflower crop is ready in 100 to 110 days. After sunflower, farmers can sow groundnut, arhar dal, soyabean, corn and few other crops.
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Inside Babudom
Chandigarh, May 15 While the officers have formed an association to fight for “their dues”, meetings to devise plans are the order of the day. In an attempt to get a better deal, police officers the country over are joining hands against the recommendations together to deal with the “crisis”. While there are few instances of IPS officers resorting to such “tactics” to lobby for their rights and limit their associations to organising get togethers and farewells, this time round it is a “serious” issue on hand. While they watch their own interest, they are “concerned” about the lower ranks that make the police force. For, as a part of their agenda, the officers association has included the case of the pay anomalies of constables as well. It is another matter that the police top brass failed to give recognition to an association of the lower ranks in the past. Another interesting development that has emerged from the forming of the association has been the coming together of two power centres of the Haryana police. Not known to see eye-to-eye on a number of police matters, they are sharing the stage at the meetings of the Association and one of them even convinced the Chief Minister to write a letter to the Prime Minister to “put in a good word” for the officers. As the top brass builds up momentum against this injustice, the powerful lobby of the IAS officers has only just bothered to take notice of the developments without really giving these any thought. Reacting to the IPS lobby rallying for support, a senior IAS officer said that unlike the IPS top brass, which gets two orderlies at their residences, they don’t get any help at home besides being at a relative disadvantage. However, the IAS lobby maintains that as far as the police association limits itself to the pay commission, they don’t have a problem. These differences between the IAS and IPS lobby, at the helm of affairs in any state, are not new. A virtual tug-of-war between the services is always on, be it a case of supremacy in the district between the DC and the superintendent of Police, a matter of speedy promotion of officers or any other issue. Of course, the IAS officers end up getting a better deal more often than not. In Haryana, the writing of ACRs of SPs by the DCs is a bone of contention and, at one time, the practice was discontinued, only to be resumed again. However, there have been instances were the IPS officers have come out one up on their “big brothers” like the introduction of the commissioner system in Gurgaon which did not go down well with the IAS lobby. It would be interesting to watch how things between the two services unfold especially since the Haryana DGP, Ranjiv Dalal, is known to have more friends in the IAS fraternity than his own service courtesy his long stints in the IAS training academy at
Mussourie.
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MDU: Loopholes in examination system
Chandigarh, May 15 MDU follow the semester system in professional courses like MBA. Examinations are held in December and May each year. According to analyses of the MBA results of the MDU for a number of years made by Ravikant Swami, head of the department of management studies, Hindu Institute of Management, Sonepat, MDU takes almost a complete semester to declare the results of the previous semester. For the exams that ended on Dec 14, 2007, result was declared on April 15, 2008. Manoj Soni took admission in the MBA batch of 2003-05 and took the first semester examinations in Dec 2003. The boy completed his second semester studies by April 10, 2004. But when the result of the first semester was announced, he could not pass in five out of eight subjects. Considering him as "fail", the university did not permit him to appear in the second semester examination. He applied for re-evaluation and cleared all the papers of the first semester. Since the result of re-evaluation came in November 2004, he had to join his junior batch. Swami alleges that the results are delayed because an "elite" group of teachers does not want the evaluation work to go out of its purview. In each semester, about 25,000 answer sheets are evaluated. Though many evaluators are available in the institutes affiliated to the university, Swami alleges, the "elite" group keeps them out on pretexts like lack of experience or being employed in the private sector. But the real reason, Swami claims, is that the group does not want "outsiders" to have share in the remuneration paid. Most of the universities permit only one or two "re-appears" to the students. However, at MDU, a student can get "re-appears" in 50 per cent of the papers, he adds. This liberal rule has "generated" students, who have completed their two-year course but are yet to clear "re-appears" in as many as 19 papers. Though the Institute of Management Studies and Research at MDU has constituted the syllabus preparation and revision committee with professors of high academic repute as its members. However, in certain subjects, the syllabus has been copied verbatim from one single book. In such cases, the students are to study that particular book, even if it contains mistakes. The issue and return record of libraries of all the institutes corroborates his contention. The reasons are obvious, he says.
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Together forever
Sonepat, May 15 “They lived together; worked together; nourished their children together ; shared the ups and downs of 50 years married life together and finally travelled the last leg of their life journey together,” was the tribute from the people who participated in their joint “shav yatra” up to the crematorium in the village. Dharam Singh, a carpenter and originally resident of village Bhatgaon, had settled in village Garhi Brahmanan on the outskirts of Sonepat town about 10 years back. He had two sons – Rakesh and Rajesh and three daughters. According to Rakesh, on the fateful morning, his father went for morning walk as usual and after returning home, he had a cup of tea. But around 7 a.m, he complained of some problem in the body. The doctor was called immediately but before the doctor reached the house, he had expired. When preparations were being made for his cremation, Bharpai also breathed her last around 9 a.m. Though her death was a great loss to the family; but at the same time it gave satisfaction to the family as both had gone together in the “durbar” of God and might be
united forever, remarked Rakesh.
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Citizens’ Grievances
Perhaps Lalu Yadav’s profitable railway budget is not meant for the development of Shahabad railway station. It lacks basic amenities and needs proper maintenance. One can see a dry tank of drinking water with broken taps just outside its waiting room. The waiting room and toilets are full of dust, dirt and spread foul smell. Heaps of rubbish can also be seen lying here and there on the platforms and the sanitation system is totally a failure. The ticket window is opened only 5-10 minutes before the arrival of a train and this situation creates panic among the commuters.
Surinder Pal Singh
Wadhawan, Shahabad Markanda Readers, write in Send in write-ups, not exceeding 200 words, to Haryana Plus, The Tribune, Sector 29, Chandigarh. E-mail:
adalat@tribunemail.com |
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Movie of the week
Producer: Mahesh Bhatt Jannat opens today at Fun Cinema-Ambala City, Fun-Panipat, PVR MGF, Europa, PVR Sahara, SRS OMAXE, DTCC, DTMM (All Gurgaon), SRS City Centre, SRS Prestine, Pyramid, INOX, PVR Crown Plaza, SRS Shubham (All Faridabad) Liberty-Rohtak, Suncity-Hissar, Minerva-Ambala Cantt, Cinemax-Panipat, Naaz-Palwal. What to watch out for: A different boy meets girl love story, debutant Sonal Chauhan, Kunal Deshmukh’s direction and Pritam’s humdinger music score. — Dharam Pal
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