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SAD expels former MLA Barnala
SAD regains core Malwa, Cong captures Doaba
BJP segments cut Sidhu’s victory margin
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Cong’s youth factor comes out top in Punjab
BJP’s worst performance
Soni cries foul
Sukhbir predicts Cong collapse
BSP experiment bombs
SAD leadership never accepted Galib
Manmohan factor fails in Majha
BKU seeks clarity on PAU-201’s status
Landless labourers take over govt land
100 operated for cleft lip
Badal felicitates Manmohan
PTU defers semester exams, CET result
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SAD expels former MLA Barnala
Chandigarh, May 17 Party sources said the action was taken after the party reviewed the role of its leadership in the Lok Sabha poll. The SAD had managed to win only four of the 10 seats it contested, while its alliance partner BJP only one of the three. The Congress had won eight seats spread across Malwa, Doaba and Majha regions. The action on Mann and Barnala comes following reports that the two were instrumental in the defeat of Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, SAD nominee and sitting MP from Sangrur. Dhindsa lost to Vijay Inder Singla of the Congress by 40,872 votes. Dhindsa polled 15,082 votes less than Singla in the Sangrur assembly segment and 17,548 votes in Barnala assembly segment. Though Dhindsa was ahead in Mann’s Dirba assembly segment by 1,693 votes, the party felt that Mann had worked against party interest in the parliamentary constituency. Inside sources said Dhindsa had worked against both Barnala and Mann when they contested Dhuri and Dirba assembly segment, resulting in their defeats. So, they have now got even with Dhindsa. According to a statement issued by Sukhbir in Chandigarh, “Indiscipline within the party will not be tolerated. All those who have opposed the official party nominee in the LS elections will be dealt with sternly”. The statement of the party chief has indicated that many more heads will now roll over the next few days. Action could be forthcoming on Youth Akali Dal President Kirabir Singh Kang and Morinda MLA Ujjagar Singh Badali, both of whom reportedly did not do enough for Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema, SAD nominee for Anandpur Sahib. The SAD is taking respite in the fact that it has won the Bathinda seat with the highest margin among all 13 Lok Sabha seats. Harsimrat Kaur, wife of Sukhbir, won this seat from Raninder Singh (Congress), son of Capt Amarinder Singh, with a margin of 1,20,948 votes. On the remaining three seats the SAD candidates won, they were fifth (Paramjit Kaur Gulshan - Faridkot) with a margin of 62,042 votes, ninth (Dr Rattan Singh Ajnala - Khadur Sahib) with a margin of 32,260 votes and 10th (Sher Singh Ghubaya- Ferozepur) with a margin of 21,071 votes. Overall, the SAD stood second in terms of the number of votes polled. The Congress at the first position in terms of the number of votes polled 53,50,377 (45.23 per cent) votes and the SAD at number two polled 40,04,789 (33.85 per cent votes). The BJP was at number three with 11,90,144 (10.06 per cent votes), followed by the BSP at number four with 6,80,048 (5.75 per cent) votes.
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No notice received, say Barnala, Mann
Sangrur, May 17 This was the first reaction of two prominent leaders of the SAD from Sangrur district, former Dhuri MLA Gaganjit Singh Barnala and former Dirba MLA Baldev Singh Mann, when The Tribune this afternoon contacted them on the phone about the news of their expulsion from primary membership of the SAD by the party high command. SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema confirmed the expulsion of Barnala and Mann from primary membership of the party by party President Sukhbir Singh Badal on the complaint of party’s Sangrur candidate Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa that both leaders had worked against him to get him defeated in the
LS elections. Dhindsa said he had earlier also made a complaint to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal that Barnala and Mann had been working against him openly in the LS elections.
Baldev said he had not indulged in any “anti-party” activity as he had campaigned wholeheartedly for Dhindsa in the elections. Even he had got published an appeal in a newspaper asking party workers to work for
Dhindsa. He said he was not responsible for Dhindsa’s defeat as Dhindsa had taken a lead in his Dirba Assembly segment while Dhindsa had suffered a defeat in other segments, including
Sunam. Gaganjit also said, “Let us see after the receipt of the notice”.
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Poll Analysis Sarbjit Dhaliwal Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, May 17 Another factor that should make the SAD-BJP uneasy is that it has not done well in big cities such as Jalandhar, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Bathinda. In fact, in urban areas it has received a major setback whereas its vote bank, by and large, is intact in rural areas. In the core Malwa region, SAD’s Harsimrat Kaur has won with an impressive margin and likewise Paramjit Kaur Gulshan has defeated Congress candidate Sukhwinder Singh Danny with a good margin in the Faridkot constituency. During the last assembly elections, the SAD was defeated comprehensively by the Congress in all Vidhan Sabha constituencies that fall in the jurisdiction of the Bathinda and Faridkot Lok Sabha constituencies. The SAD has also won the Ferozepur seat where it has not done very well during the assembly elections. How, the SAD managed most important “dera” factor in the core Malwa region that remains a most enigmatic factor of the election so far. But, the Congress has comprehensively defeated the SAD in the rest of the major part of the Malwa region. The Congress has won Sangrur, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, Anandpur Sahib and Ludhiana constituencies. Even its most seasoned and senior leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa has lost to Congress candidate Vijay Inder Singla, who is a first-timer. Singla, one of the young faces of the party, was a personal choice of Rahul Gandhi. For the several decades, Sangrur has remained a stronghold of the SAD and to get defeated there is surely a serious setback to the party. In Patiala, Preneet Kaur, Congress candidate, has won for the third time in a row with an impressive margin, maintaining party’s control over the area. In Ludhiana, Manish Tewari of the Congress has defeated Gurcharan Singh Galib, Congressman-turned-Akali, with a margin of over one lakh votes. Last time, Sharanjit Singh Dhillon of the SAD had won from this seat. The SAD-BJP, which had performed exceedingly well in the Gurdaspur region during the assembly elections, has suffered a serious setback. Partap Singh Bajwa of the Congress has won from the constituency defeating Vinod Khanna, who had won the seat three times in a row, finishing off the political career of late Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder, who was a very popular leader in the area. During the last Assembly elections, Bajwa was the only Congress candidate to be elected among 11 segments falling in the Gurdaspur constituency. Victory of Bajwa in a constituency where all MLAs, except him, belonged to either the SAD or to the BJP, is certainly a big achievement. In Jalandhar again, Mohinder Singh Kaypee of the Congress has defeated SAD-BJP’s star candidate Hans Raj Hans. Kaypee has won despite the fact that all MLAs, except one, in the Jalandhar constituency belonged to the SAD-BJP combine. In other words, the Congress, which had been defeated in the assembly elections, has regained base in the Jalandhar constituency, especially in urban segments. In Hoshiarpur, Satosh Chaudhary (Congress) has defeated Som Prakash (BJP) with the lowest margin in the state. Navjot Singh Sidhu of the BJP has won third time in a row defeating Om Parkash Singh Soni, a formidable candidate. In the last assembly elections, the SAD-BJP had done well in the Amritsar area. The SAD-BJP has retained its hold on Amritsar. The Khadur Sahib constituency, which was earlier known as the Tarn Taran constituency, has remained with the SAD for the past several years except once or twice. Though SAD candidate Rattan Singh Ajnala was pitted against strong Congress leader Rana Gurjit Singh, owing to the rural character of the constituency, Ajnala’s win was almost certain.
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BJP segments cut Sidhu’s victory margin
Amritsar, May 17 The constituency-wise results of the Amritsar seat show that Sidhu was defeated from both BJP-held constituencies of Amritsar North and Amritsar Central with a margin of 5,108 and 10,064 votes respectively. During the previous assembly elections, BJP candidates Anil Joshi and Laxmi Kanta Chawla, Health Minister, had won from these assembly constituencies. The joining of the BJP fold by Arun Kumar Pappal, who had polled considerable votes as Congress rebel candidate in the last assembly elections, failed to improve BJP’s prospects in the Amritsar Central constituency. Though the BJP and SAD had been at loggerheads at the time of the civic elections, it was the latter that ensured the victory of Sidhu, especially from the countryside. Sidhu have mostly concentrated on urban areas and ensured overall development of this holy city, yet the urban voter went for the Congress candidate. The result will compel the BJP MP to give equal importance to the rural segment of his constituency, which has been instrumental in his hat-trick. The second most important factor that led to the defeat of Soni is infighting in the local Congress that reflects in the result. Though the Rajasansi assembly constituency was won by Sukh Sarkaria, a Congress candidate, in the 2007 assembly elections, Soni trailed here by 15,249 votes. Similarly, Soni’s performance in Ajnala showed that the former Congress MLA Harpartap Singh Ajnala failed to campaign in favour of the party candidate. Differences between Sidhu and former Akali minister Bikram Singh Majithia were open secret, yet the latter worked hard to the satisfaction of the BJP by increasing the lead of Sidhu in his Majitha constituency with more than 20,000 votes. However, the lead of Soni in Amritsar (West) by a margin of more than 20,000 votes showed that in his capacity as Congress MLA he nurtured his constituency well. However, Soni was down by a margin of 833 votes in Amritsar (East), 1,837 in Sikh-dominated Amritsar (South) and 5,760 in
Attari.
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Cong’s youth factor comes out top in Punjab
Chandigarh, May 17 In fact, this election will be remembered for the success of youth candidates not only in the Congress, but also the SAD. Harsimrat Kaur Badal (42) of the SAD got the better of Raninder Singh (41) of the Congress in Bathinda, even as Sher Singh Ghubaya (46) of the SAD upstaged Jagmeet Singh Brar (51) of the Congress in
Ferozepur. Though the credit for bringing youth to the fore goes to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, the electorate had shown an affinity towards youth candidates in the last Assembly elections also, during which a number of Akali and Congress stalwarts lost to relative newcomers. The youth experiment in Punjab started with the holding up of the first democratic elections to the Youth Congress under Rahul’s supervision six months back. It was during this period that the then Youth Congress President Vijay Inder Singla (37) caught Rahul’s eye. The other candidates, Ravneet Singh
Bittu, who has won from Anandpur Sahib, and Sukhwinder Singh Danny, who lost from Faridkot (Reserved), also emerged as part of this process. The elections have shown that Rahul’s experiment has paid off with the youth of the state showing a definite tilt towards the Congress, despite earnest attempts by the SAD and its President Sukhbir Singh Badal to build a youth organisation in the shape of the Students Organisation of India
(SOI). The party lost both Patiala and Sangrur seats, where the SOI is most visible. In fact, there is a strong demand post elections from the youth as well as the electorate that was reflected in victory processions to give a share in governance to the youth from Punjab.
Singla, who has defeated former Union ministers Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa (SAD) and Balwant Singh
Ramoowalia, is among the front-runners for a claim in the Union Ministry. Singla has won the seat for the Congress after 17 years in a traditionally Akali belt. Another strong contender among the Congress victors is Manish Tewari (44), who has already represented the party effectively as its spokesman and defeated Gurcharan Singh Galib (73) of the SAD. Among the Akalis, Sukhbir’s wife Harsimrat has emerged as a leader in her own right by trouncing Capt Amarinder Singh’s son
Raninder. This happened due to Harsimrat’s image as a social worker, besides development done in the constituency. Raninder’s campaign that ran mainly on the
anti-Sukhbir plank, could not take off at the grassroots level due to better organisational skills of the Akalis. In
Faridkot, where Rahul’s candidate Danny lost to Paramjit Kaur Gulshan, it was another youth in the form of Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal (46), who was the deciding factor for SAD.
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BJP’s worst performance
Jalandhar, May 17 During the last assembly elections, the BJP had come out with an impressive performance. Of the 23 candidates put up by it, 19 were elected. Of these, five are ministers, one Deputy Speaker and four chief parliamentary secretaries. Will many heads roll for a poor performance in the segments represented by the BJP ministers, chief parliamentary secretaries and MLAs? That is the question doing rounds in the party circles. Divisions in the ranks of the BJP in the state have obviously proved costly for the party. BJP candidate Vinod Khanna lost to Congress’ Partap Singh Bajwa because of poor performance in the assembly constituencies of Batala, Dinanagar, Sujanpur, Pathankot and Bhoa, represented by BJP MLAs. Likewise, in Hoshiarpur, the defeat of BJP’s Som Prakash, who lost with a margin of a little less than 400 votes, can be attributed to bad performance in the Hoshiarpur, Phagwara and Dasuya segments, again represented by the BJP in the assembly. Som Prakash got good votes only from Mukerian, a segment represented by BJP MLA Arunesh Thakur. Gurcharan Singh Galib lost with a big margin in two segments represented by the BJP in Ludhiana city. However, the BJP can have the consolation that Galib also lost with a good margin in some of the other urban segments of Ludhiana city and its outskirts, represented by SAD MLAs and ministers. SAD-BJP candidate Hans Raj Hans lost with a big margin in the segments represented by one BJP minister and two BJP MLAs in Jalandhar city. The same happened in the case of Navjot Singh Sidhu, who lost with a good margin in the assembly segments represented by BJP minister and also another represented by a BJP MLA. Sidhu has been lucky to get a substantial lead in rural constituencies. SAD’s Sher Singh Ghubaya, who has defeated Congress candidate Jagmeet Brar, lost with a big margin in the Ferozepur (urban) segment, represented by a BJP MLA. However, he won from the Fazilka segment represented by BJP MLA Surjit Kumar Jiyani with a margin of about 2,500 votes. |
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Villagers here want to join Pak to avail school, hospital facilities
Gurdaspur, May 17 The school in the village is only till Class V and its building is in a shambles. “The building was being used by military men and we got it vacated after a lot of effort. Some new rooms have been constructed on the side, but the old building is also needed. One room is being used to tie buffaloes, while the remaining rooms are for students to sit. There is no light and the walls are cracking up at several places. After Class V, students of this village and half a dozen other nearby villages have to go to Behrampur, a small township 15 km away, which has a senior secondary school. For college education, it is 30 km to Dinanagar. “The distances are long and what is worse is that we have only a pontoon bridge connecting the Ravi to our village. Students go beyond the river every day to study in higher classes. During monsoon, when the pontoon bridge is dismantled, we are cut off from India. There are times we feel like requesting the Punjab government to allow us to join Pakistan as the school and hospital across the border is nearer than what we have here,” said Nirmal Singh of the village. The local government dispensary is in an equally bad shape. Though the building is new, it is abandoned. “A nurse comes every eighth day to distribute medicines,” said Bahadur Singh. The building has no furniture. The dispensary has no facility for any tests, nor is there a doctor here. “Since the building remains abandoned for so long, it has been encroached upon by someone who uses the hospital rooms to run a private school here,” added Bahadur Singh. “Several women have lost their lives during monsoon. Since there is no connectivity, we are unable to take them to hospital for deliveries. Many lives have been lost to snake bites as there is no medical facility available at all once the rains come,” said another resident. The villagers added that even though a huge amount of money was given by the Central government as border area development funds, nothing ever reached those who needed it the most. “Most of the scheme money is siphoned off. It is a shame that those sitting in Chandigarh, forming part of the government, are not even bothered in whose pockets this money is going. No action has been taken for misuse of funds,” pointed out the
residents.
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Soni cries foul
Amritsar, May 17 Soni said today that the SSP and the DC were under pressure to declare the results in favour of BJP candidate Navjot Singh Sidhu. He said when the Election Commission could order recounting in seats where Congress candidates had won, why his appeal was not accepted. Soon after the counting was over, they had submitted an application to the Electoral Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner Bhagwant Singh for holding the recounting in the entire constituency. Soni said they were suspecting some foul play as the counting was over by 12 noon, but the EO declared the result late in the evening. He alleged that the certain EVMs were tampered with, which resulted in his defeat. He said they had submitted the application for the recounting of votes in the presence of election observers and got it recorded in the daily diary. However, Bhagwant Singh said he had not received any representation in this regard from the Congress candidate. He said the result was withheld due to a technical snag in one of the EVMs of the Amritsar South assembly constituency, for which the approval from the Chief Election Commissioner had to be sought before declaring the final results. Meanwhile, Soni said the he would be forced to the move the High Court for the recounting of votes if the Electoral Officer failed to order the same by Monday.
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Sukhbir predicts Cong collapse
Chandigarh, May 17 “During the election campaign, Amarinder had repeatedly declared that he would accept the result of the Bathinda poll as a referendum on whom the people of Punjab wanted to see as their leaders, the Badals or the former Patiala royals. Now, that the mandate is in, Amarinder should display political and moral courage to quit politics”, Sukhbir said. SAD president said a large number of Congress legislators and leaders were already in touch with the SAD for some kind of a political arrangement through which they could quit the party without inviting action under the provisions of the anti-defection law. “The only thing that stands between an imminent Congress split and its survival now is the refusal of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to push matters to the extreme. The Congress leaders should be thankful to him for that,” Sukhbir added. The SAD president further said he was happy that the people had rejected the Amarinder brand of politics and had chosen to endorse the development agenda of the SAD-BJP government.
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BSP experiment bombs
Chandigarh, May 17 The Left parties fared even worse being relegated to under 20,000 votes in all constituencies contested by them. They individually got less than half per cent of the vote share. The election was expected to be a big one for the BSP, which replicated the UP model in the state by giving party ticket to a mixture of Brahmins, Rajputs and Dalits. The party started the exercise of choosing candidates well in advance of the polls and even withdrew a few nominations to “fine tune” its list. However, the formidable combination worked out by the BSP flopped with the party acquiring a vote share of only 5.75 per cent. Among the big losers are former Punjab Governor Lieut-Gen BKN Chhibber (retd) from Amritsar who was able to get only 11,108 votes. In its traditional stronghold of Ferozepur, party’s Jat Sikh candidate Gurdev Singh Mansaiya could get only 29,713 votes. In Gurdaspur, Swaran Singh Thakur polled 15,420 votes and in Khadur Sahib Surinder Singh Shahi secured 13,333 votes. In Hoshiarpur (reserved) its candidate Sukhwinder Kumar got 1.03 lakh votes, Anandpur Sahib Kewal Krishan got 1.11 lakh votes, Jalandhar Surjit Singh polled 93,592 votes, Fatehgarh Sahib former UP bureaucrat Rai Singh got 65,479 votes, Sangrur where Mohammad Jamil-ur-Rehman polled 69,943 votes and Patiala Deepak Joshi got 57,839 votes. The BSP apparently did not build upon its strength in its traditional pockets as was seen with the party nomination in Ferozepur going to a Jat Sikh candidate. This alienated BC and SC votes which sided with SAD nominee and Rai Sikh Sher Singh Ghubaya. Similarly, party’s propensity to first award a ticket and then withdraw it saying the candidate chosen had not been able to run his campaign in a
proper manner had slighted candidates claiming money had been demanded from them
for party ticket. Meanwhile, Left parties fared even worse. CPI candidate and former legislator Hardev Arshi was able to poll only 20,000 votes in the erstwhile Bathinda bastion of the party. CPI candidate in the Faridkot (reserved) seat also got an equal number of votes, while lone CPM candidate Mahan Singh polled only 17,147 votes in Anandpur Sahib.
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SAD leadership never accepted Galib
Chandigarh, May 17 While many reasons are being attributed to the defeat of Galib, the defeat of Atwal is being mainly attributed to low mobilisation of voters on the polling day, especially in the areas that were once stronghold of Gurcharan Singh Tohra. In Ludhiana, Galib lost because, to begin with, the SAD leadership and cadres never accepted him as their own. “We opposed him when he was in the Congress several times. How can we support or seek votes for him now?” is how some SAD leaders put it. Also, the BJP leadership was very unhappy over Galib’s choice as he rubbed many of them the wrong way when he was Congress MP. Besides, the youth preferred a young person (Tewari) to a 79 year old. In Fatehgarh Sahib, Libra won on Congress ticket because he polled a large number of votes of urban Sikhs, who voted for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Libra was the only SAD MP, who abstained from voting against the Congress-led UPA government on the issue of Indo-US Nuclear Deal. Besides Congress votes, Libra polled a lot of votes in Fatehgarh Sahib and Khanna, which have remained a stronghold of the Tohra group (within the Akali Dal). Libra belongs to the erstwhile Tohra faction. Besides, the Congress managed to mobilise voters in the Fatehgarh Sahib constituency, especially in areas south of the Chandigarh-Ludhiana road. His opponent Atwal polled higher number of votes in Machhiwara and Samrala areas. With both Libra and Atwal being over 70, the young voters of the constituency were, in fact, disappointed in not having a younger representative.
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Manmohan factor fails in Majha
Khadoor Sahib, May 17 Prime Minister addressed two rallies in his hometown Amritsar and Khadoor Sahib in favour of these two candidates on the last day of campaigning on May 11. In Khadoor Sahib, SAD candidate Rattan Singh Ajnala defeated his rival Congress candidate Rana with a margin of 32,260 votes. Actually, the Congress left no stone unturned to break SAD bastion, as six of the total nine Assembly constituencies included in newly carved Khadoor Sahib were earlier part of now dissolved (after delimitation) Tarn Taran Parliamentary constituency, traditionally a SAD bastion, as none but SAD candidates have emerged victorious from this seat continuously since Emergency, except in 1991 when SAD boycotted the elections. Even in last Parliamentary elections, SAD candidate from Khadoor Sahib Ajnala (3,64,646) defeated his nearest rival Congress candidate Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria (Raja Sansi MLA, 3,08,252) with a margin of 56,934 votes from Tarn Taran. However, the margin of Ajnala’s victory this time has reduced to 32,260, as compared to 56,934 in 2004. Jalandhar MP and Congress candidate from Khadoor Sahib Rana Gurjit Singh also did not forget to raise the issue of the first Sikh Prime Minister in his electioneering to break SAD bastion here, but could not succeed. During his rally at Kaka Kandiala village in Tarn Taran district falling under the Khadoor Sahib constituency on May 11, Dr Manmohan Singh specially mentioned in his speech about the development projects initiated by the Congress-led UPA government in religious cities of Amritsar, Anandpur Sahib and Nanded Sahib. Manmohan also addressed a rally in Jalalabad in favour of Ferozepur Congress candidate Jagmeet Singh Brar on May 2, but failed to register his victory. However, Congress candidate Manish Tewari won with a huge margin from Ludhiana, where Prime Minister addressed a press conference a few hours before ending campaigning on May 11.
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BKU seeks clarity on PAU-201’s status
Ludhiana, May 17 In a state level meeting of the BKU, it was pointed out by the leaders from across the state that hundreds of farmers are in the process of planting the nurseries these days. At the same time, the rice-sheller owners are flooding the regional print media in particular, with advertisements saying that they would not purchase the PAU 201 rice because it did not meet the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) specifications. At the same time, the Punjab government claims to have taken up the matter with the Centre. However, farmers have not been satisfied because of no official stand of the state government. The issue gains greater importance in wake of the next paddy season drawing near, still nearer is the date of the plantation of the nursery before transplantation. “First, we will give a memorandum of demands on May 25, to all the district heads, failing which we will be forced to launch an agitation,” said general-secretary Bhupinder Singh Mahesri. A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting attended by state president Ajmer Singh Lakhowal, general-secretaries Bhupinder Singh Mahesari and Harmit Singh Kadian and all the district presidents. It was pointed out that the farmers are also a peeved lot due to the abysmally poor electricity supply to the farming sector. A case has been made for overloading of the power supply lines that leads to frequent tripping. The poor network of power supply is matched with an equally poor status of the transformers all over the state. Farmers have put forward their problem of long delays in getting new power connections sanctioned. The BKU is also seeking the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for 1121-Basmati. The meeting today also took up the issue for government fixing prices of even potatoes and onions, besides other vegetables. The union has sought a compliance with the Swaminathan report. Lakhowal pointed out that the government will have to act fast towards clearing the farm loans in the state. “Punjab farmers are virtually absent in the first list of farmers, whose loans were waived in the Rs 2,500 crore first installment, as a part of the Rs 6,000 crore total waiver given by the government,” he added.
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Landless labourers take over govt land
Sangrur, May 17 After taking possession, they reportedly put up tents and constructed temporary shelters there. A district committee member of the CPI (ML) Liberation Pargat Singh Bir and a leader of brick kiln workers Harjinder Hodla were also present there. Talking to The Tribune on Friday, state acting secretary, CPI (ML) Liberation, Sher Singh Dhandholi said Kal Banjara was only the fourth village in Sangrur district where landless labourers had taken forcible possession of government land, whereas in Mansa district landless labourers had already taken possession of government land in more than 20 villages. Bir said at Kal Banjara village the financial health of members of the Backward Classes (BCs) was worse as compared to members of the Scheduled Castes (SCs). He said when the landless BCs came to know that SCs were going to take possession of government land, they also accompanied them in taking the possession of the land. Bir also said landless labourers would organise a big gathering at Mansa on May 19 to compel the Badal government to implement the promise made with them in the previous Assembly elections that they would be given 10 marla plots for constructing houses.
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100 operated for cleft lip
Patiala, May 17 Renowned plastic surgeon Gurpratap Singh, a former professor and head of the department of plastic surgery, Government Medical College,
Patiala, who has already operated over 2,000 such cases, is rendering services free of cost to bring smile back on the faces of these underprivileged children. Over 100 such surgeries have been conducted so far in this hospital.
According to Gurpratap Singh, putting the smile back on these children is the greatest reward and he feels blessed that God has gifted him with such a skill to bring happiness and joy into these children's life. Singh said this anomaly occurs due to congenital as well as nutritional defects during pregnancy. It is prevalent among underprivileged section of the society. Poor knowledge among villagers regarding this disease may lead to delayed treatment causing various problems in the child, such as late development of speech, malnutrition, repeated chest infections and mental retardation. A large number of female patients have undergone surgery after they failed to get suitable matrimonial alliance because of the cleft lip. Sekhon said every year 35,000 children are born with clefts, a gap between the upper lip and/or palate. Though completely treatable less than half get the treatment they desperately need only because they are poor. A cleft lip can be completely corrected with a simple surgical procedure that takes 45 minutes and costs Rs 8,000.
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Badal felicitates Manmohan
Chandigarh May 17 Meanwhile, Chief Minister’s Media Advisor Harcharan Bains said here that Badal would be calling on the Prime Minister shortly to offer constructive support of the SAD as a responsible Opposition party on solving the problems of poor and under-privileged sections of society. Bains also said the Chief Minister had sent his good wishes to all victorious candidates. Badal had expressed the hope that all newly elected MPs would rise above political affiliations to jointly raise their voice at the national level for finding solutions to the problems of the state.
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PTU defers semester exams, CET result
Jalandhar, May 17 The examination that had been re-scheduled from May 8 to May 18 sometime back has now again been put off to May 26. A press statement by Registrar Sarojini Gautam Sharda mentioned that the revised datesheet would be put on official website www.ptu.ac.in on May 19. The result of Combined Entrance Test, conducted by PTU on May 3, has now been postponed to May 26 instead of the earlier schedule of May 18.
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