Rohtak, September 3
The much-touted alliance of the BSP and the HJC led by Kuldeep Bishnoi was formally broken by national general secretary of the BSP and in charge of party affairs in Haryana Man Singh Manhera here today.

The two parties, which had been facing discontentment for the past few days, had joined hands on June 18. The BSP has declared to go it alone in the Assembly elections scheduled to be held on October 13.

This is the second political alliance that has failed to take off even before the elections as the BJP had broken its pact with the INLD a couple of weeks ago.

Seen as a shot in the arm for the ruling Congress, the breakup of the HJC-BSP alliance was announced by Manhera at a press conference here today.

Blaming the HJC leaders for the breakup, Manhera alleged that HJC supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi was interested more in sharing of tickets with the BJP than the BSP, though an agreement had reached to share the 90 seats in the ratio of 50:40.

He claimed that the HJC leader had been pressurising the party to allocate at least 30 seats to the BJP in the elections. Alleging that the BJP is a communal party and it is against the ideals and principles of the BSP to go along with such an organisation, he said BSP supremo Mayawati had given a nod to break the alliance with the HJC.

Moreover, HJC leaders had not been taking any interest in the alliance activities and keeping away from the meetings held in the recent past, he added. He said the BSP would not enter into any alliance and contest the elections independently.

He declared that the BSP would hold a state-level election rally in Jind on September 20, which would be addressed by Mayawati.

However, it may be recalled that there had been alleged discontentment among the party cadre of both the BSP and the HJC over the seat sharing after it was announced that 50 seats would go to the HJC while the rest would be given to the BSP. This announcement had led to resentment among the party leaders and workers from both the sides as it was alleged that the distribution had not been done properly and could result in a loss.

The BSP and the HJC had a 15.73 and 9.87 per cent vote share, respectively, in the last Lok Sabha elections in the state.

Chandigarh, September 3
The advanced Assembly elections in Haryana are having a fallout on the most unlikely of places - in schools of the state.

With the Assembly elections slated for October 13 in Haryana, the Education Department has decided not to go ahead with the examination schedule as planned.

To accommodate the elections that are now interfering with the date sheet prepared by the Haryana School Education Board for conducting exams from September 25 to October 19, it has been decided to defer the board exams for classes VIII, X and XII for sometime after the election process is over.

“On account of elections in the state, we will not be able to get police help for conducting the examination spread over three weeks. Besides, campaigning will be in full swing at that time and rallies and electioneering will be a distraction. Therefore it will not be suitable to hold board exams and school buildings too will be required for polling booths and other activities,” Principal Secretary, Education, Rajan Gupta, said.

Sources said the police personnel were not only needed for security of the question papers and the answer-sheets but also on the day the exam was held at all centres. Since elections take precedence over everything else, cops, in the numbers required by the board, couldn’t be made available.

“Then, during elections, schoolteachers too are on duty and even act as block level officers and presiding officers at polling booths. Before the duty actually begins, they need to be spared for training which happens from time to time, causing shortage of staff for conducting the exams,” sources said.

With this in mind, it has been decided that the semester examinations for all three board classes - the middle, secondary and senior secondary levels - will now commence from October 24, two days after the results for the Assembly elections is declared.

Rohtak, September 3
While the BSP broke its alliance with the HJC today blaming the latter for “playing” into the hands of the “communal” BJP, the BJP made it clear that it would go it alone in the Assembly elections.

The party would soon release the first list of its candidates for the elections and it would give priority to the youth in giving tickets, said BJP state president Krishan Pal Gurjar to mediapersons here today.

Gurjar claimed that there had been no proposal or move to enter into alliance with any party so far after the BJP had pulled out of the alliance with the INLD on August 24.

He said the party had started the process of finalising the first list of its candidates for the Assembly elections. Stating that the party would field candidates on all 90 seats, he said preference would be given to the youth. Claiming that the main contest would be between the Congress and the BJP, he said the party was also ready to sit in the opposition if it failed to come to power, though he said the results would be amazing and the ruling Congress would be ousted for its failure to deliver on various fronts.

Alleging that none of the main election promises had been fulfilled so far, he said crores had been wasted in publicity carried out just before the election notification. Stating that the state was under a heavy debt of about Rs 10,000 crore, he said the non-implementation of the UGC scales for teachers had been a proof of the “weak financial” status of the government.

Meanwhile, the party announced to induct two HJC leaders - JP Sharma of Gharonda and Meena Parmar of Bhiwani - into the party. While Sharma had remained a former general secretary, Parmar was holding the charge of coordinator, women cell of the HJC, it is claimed.

Panipat, September 3
Having been ditched by the BJP prior to the Assembly elections in the state, the INLD seems to have given up all hopes of forging an alliance with any political party in the state.

Party chief Om Parkash Chautala, while speaking to mediapersons here today after presiding over a meeting of all district presidents of the party, said the INLD would contest the Assembly elections all alone, claiming that they would return to power with a thumping victory.

Even as Chautala was scheduled to name party candidates who would be contesting the upcoming elections on party ticket, but the decision was deferred for a couple of days in view of the splitting up of the BSP and the HJC, the announcement of which was made by BSP state chief Man Singh Manhera earlier in the day at Rohtak. According to sources, it was a last minute decision that was taken in wake of these developments.

Chautala said it was most likely that the HJC would be forging an alliance with the BJP as it had been keen on doing so since the past LS election. He said an alliance between both parties was a must as none had any candidates to field for the elections. He choose to clarify that the party would name its candidates soon.

Reiterating that the Congress government in the state had been a complete failure, Chautala said the ruling party had looted the state like never before.

Hisar, September 3
Haryana Janhit Congress (BL) chief Kuldeep Bishnoi will contest as the party nominee from the Adampur Assembly constituency, the pocket borough of his father.

This was stated by former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal while talking to mediapersons here today.

Bhajan Lal said Bishnoi had fully recovered from a swine flu attack and would now attend the meeting called by the Chief Electoral Officer in Chandigarh tomorrow.

He said the party would announce the rest of its candidates within a week.

Hisar, September 3
The indefinite strike by university teachers entered its 10th day today as the state government failed to issue a notification implementing the pay scales recommended by the University Grants Commission in toto.

A committee comprising office-bearers of teachers’ associations of all universities of Haryana will meet here tomorrow to decide the future course of action.

President of Guru Jambheshwar University Teachers Association (GJUTA) Rajesh Lohchab said here today that even though neighbouring states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan had implemented the scales in totality as suggested by the UGC, the bureaucracy in Haryana had been ignoring the Chief Minister’s directions in this regard.

Lohchab said the teachers would continue their strike till the government issued a notification on the same pattern as other states.

Meanwhile, striking teachers of Haryana Agricultural University here sat on a dharna inside the varsity campus today seeking implementation of new pay scales without deviating from the UGC notification.

KURUKSHETRA: The university teachers in the state will take out a candle light procession on Friday and observe Teacher’s Day i.e. on September 5 as “Black Day” to express resentment over deliberate delay on the part of the government to notify the revised UGC pay scales.

Teachers of Kurukshetra University, Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, MDU, Rohtak, GJU, Hisar, CDLU, Sirsa, and CCHAU, Hisar, were unanimous on continuing the agitation till justice was done and the revised pay scales were implemented immediately in toto, Prof NS Kaushal, president, Kurukshetra University Teachers Association (KUTA), added.

SIRSA: Teachers of Chaudhary Devi Lal University here remained on strike for the tenth day on Thursday. They also sat on dharna near the main gate of the university.

Yamunanagar, September 3
In order to avoid tension prevailing between two groups of Mahants, the district administration has taken control of the administration of the famous Hanuman temple, “Panchmukhi”, in Bilaspur here today. The decision in this regard was taken to avoid disturbance in the area that has been mounted following claims of two groups of Mahants to control the administration of the temple.

The tension has been aggravated between the two groups after Mahant of temple Bal Mukund Dass was found dead on the temple premises under mysterious circumstances on August 22.

Dass was first alleged to be murdered by a rival group of Mahants and later the police claimed that he had committed suicide. Tension was prevailing since January when two groups had claimed their rights over the temple.

Thereafter, the two groups approached the administration to settle the dispute. They also approached the court to settle the dispute. Confirming the development, Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar Agarwal told The Tribune that the administration has taken control over the temple to avoid any incident of violence.

“The action was also important to avoid any inconvenience to devotees. We have taken control over the temple administration till December. As the case related to claims of the two groups to control the administration of the temple is pending in the local court. As per the high court orders the decision of the case has to be taken till December” he added.

All Mahants were ordered to leave and now no Mahant of any group was present there. The administration will now appoint a priest for temple on salary basis and take care of it, he added.

Sonepat, September 3
Devender Kumar, Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) at the Kharkhoda police station, has been booked under Section 342, IPC, for adopting a negligent attitude in complying with the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court regarding the granting of anticipatory bail to an alleged accused in a dowry torture case.

According to information, Noordin of Kheri Gujjar village lodged a complaint to the Sonepat SP stating that on the complaint of his daughter-in-law Farzana, a case of harassment for dowry was registered against seven members of his family in Kharkhoda police station. The investigation of the case was handed over to ASI Devender.

He further stated that he was granted anticipatory bail by the high court and when he, along with Surender, Telu Ram and Subodh of the same village went to the police station to hand over the copy of the high court orders, the ASI allegedly not only refused to receive the copy of the orders, but also detained him illegally for around 45 minutes.

The SP handed over the case to DSP Amreek Singh and after the inquiry, the DSP ordered to register a case against the ASI.