Ellenabad, January 14
With electioneering reaching its final phase, the Congress as well as the INLD have intensified their campaign in the town, which, with its over 22,000 votes, can be crucial to the outcome on January 20.

The constituency has over 1.48 lakh voters of which nearly 1.26 lakh are in 80 small and big villages.

Activists of major parties have assigned duties to hundreds of workers, who have been going door to door seeking votes.

The parties are concentrating on community leaders in various areas to woo the voters. Former minister Ashok Arora, who is also state president of the party, heads the INLD’s campaign in Ellenabad town.

Assisting him are Padam Jain, district Sirsa party chief, Subhash Goyal, a former minister, Amir Chawla, a former SS Board chairman, Jatinder Balmiki and Pirthi Singh Balmiki, both MLAs, Swatantar Bala Chaudhary, a former MLA and Krishna Fogat, district president of the women’s wing at Sirsa.

For the ruling Congress, Gopal Kanda, Minister of State for Home, is leading the campaign in the town. He is assisted by Bajrang Dass Garg, Gobind Kanda and Kamlesh Sharma. Minister OP Jain and Savitri Jindal also campaigned for Beniwal in the town today.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda conducted a roadshow in the town on January 8 while Om Parkash Chautala addressed meetings in the town on January 10.

“The electorate in the town knows that its interests are secure with the government headed by Hooda and will surely go with the ruling party,” claimed Kanda.

“The townsmen are like family members of the Chautalas and they will not go against the party,” maintained an equally confident Padam Jain.

Meanwhile, the INLD today sent yet another complaint to the Election Commission, seeking removal of Hisar Commissioner Balbir Singh Malik and Sirsa DC Yudhvir Singh Khyalia from elction duty.

“The INLD had requested the Election Commission to transfer Balbir Singh Malik, Commissioner, Hisar Division, from his current posting.

“Instead, he was given a direct role by the state government on the eve of the election campaign in Sirsa by appointing him VC of Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa,” said the complaint.

“It ill-behoves the commission not to respond to our repeated complaints against Malik and Khyalia,” said the complaint that was sharp in tone.

“It is with a sense of deep hurt and anguish that I write this letter... But if the commission continues to be dismissive about smaller and regional parties like the INLD, then grievous injury would have been inflicted upon the body politic of the country, the sole responsibility of which shall lay at the door of the commission,” said the complaint written on behalf of RS Chaudhary, secretary, INLD.

The complaint said the least that the commission could do was to direct the Chief Secretary that Malik was not entrusted with any poll duty for the sake of fair play.

Ellenabad, January 14
INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala today refuted Birender Singh’s claim on the fiscal condition of Haryana during his tenure as CM.

“We left over Rs 9000 crore in the state coffers when our government was voted out of power in 2005. Since then, the fiscal condition of the state has gone from bad to worse with the government now under a debt of over Rs 30,000 crore,” alleged Chautala, addressing mediapersons at Darba village yesterday.

“Value-added Tax (VAT), stamp duty and revenue were the three major sources of collection for the government and all three worked well during our regime. Now these have collapsed.

“Revenue from mining, which was Rs 500 crore during our regime, has fallen to less than Rs 20 crore and stones for buildings are being smuggled from Rajasthan under political patronage, causing heavy losses to the state revenue,” Chautala claimed.

Refuting his claims today, Birender Singh who was Finance Minister in the earlier government headed by Bhupinder Singh Hooda, talking to the media at Karamsana village said: “Annual collections were Rs 8500 crore when I took over as Finance Minister in 2005 and it increased to Rs 16, 000 by the time I left in 2009, thereby registering an annual growth of 20 per cent.”

He said despite the meltdown, over 12 per cent hike in collection was registered in November and December this year.

He saw nothing wrong in taking loans provided the money was spent on infrastructure that would help the government increase its collections.

He attributed the fall in revenue collections from mining to the ban imposed by the Supreme Court on mining in the NCR.

Chautala defeated Birender Singh from Uchana Kalan in the October 2009 assembly elections, though by a slender margin.

Birender Singh is campaigning here in favour of Congress candidate Bharat Singh Beniwal.

Sonepat, January 14
The state unit of the All-India Jat Mahasabha has decided to work for the defeat of the INLD candidate in the Ellenabad byelection and asked its district and block presidents to support the Congress candidate.

In a statement here today, the spokesman of the mahasabha and convener of the Haryana Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, Tara Chand Mor, said that the Hukam Singh government in 1990 had accepted the recommendations of the Gurnam Singh Commission to grant OBC status to the Jats in Haryana.

But this was denied to the Jats by Bhajan Lal when he became Chief Minister in 1991.

Mor recalled that when the struggle for OBC status for Jats in Rajasthan was on, the then Om Prakash Chautala government had assured at various public meetings that whenever reservation was given to the Jats in Rajasthan, the same would be given to the Jats in Haryana.

The Jats in Rajasthan and Delhi were given OBC status in 1999, but in spite of repeated assurances, Chautala had done nothing in this direction, Mor alleged.

Kurukshetra, January 14
Expecting about 10-15 lakh devotees to descend on Kurukshetra to take holy dip at Braham Sarovar and Sannihit Sarovar on the occasion of a solar eclipse tomorrow, the administration has made elaborate arrangements to ensure that the event passes off peacefully.

Divisional Commissioner (Ambala) Mohinder Kumar reviewed the arrangements today and said since the next solar eclipse would occur in 2019, the influx of devotees could be more than expected.

He also asked the district administration and the police to take all possible measures to ensure that no untoward incident took place.

He said 3,000 special buses would be pressed into service and special trains would run to facilitate the pilgrims and the visitors would be provide with insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh.

The sarovars have been renovated and the entire area has been given a face lift to mark the occasion.

The city has been divided into 10 sectors and adequate security forces have been deployed to maintain law and order. Besides, closes circuit TVs and bomb squads have also been positioned at suitable places to meet any eventuality. The partial eclipse would start at 11.55 am and end at 3.09 pm.

Chandigarh, January 14
After magnanimity, it is pay back time. For once, entrepreneurs and private institutions will be at the service of the state’s poor because the Haryana government wants it so.

To ensure that private players fulfil their commitment, the government has got cracking in order to extend quality education and healthcare to the poor as per the allotment agreement with these entrepreneurs.

These private players had availed themselves of concessional sites in developed urban estates of Haryana at the time of allotment on the condition that a quota for poor patients and students would be fixed in hospitals and educational institutions, respectively.

Realising that all such players had forgotten the promise, the government wants to send out a reminder to them to comply with the terms of the agreement. As an indicator that the government means business, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has constituted a state-level committee and two district-level committees with a view to ensuring compliance.

Headed by Chief Secretary Urvashi Gulati, the state-level committee would evolve a mechanism for the guidance of the district-level committees and monitor compliance on a quarterly basis. The district-level committees will be headed by the DCs and include the SDMs of the subdivision where any private hospital is located. Estate Officer, HUDA, the district attorney and DTP (planning) will also be its members.

While the committee on education will have district education officer and district elementary education officer, the committee on health will have civil surgeon as its member.

These committees will sponsor or nominate students to private educational institutions for free education and patients to private hospitals for free treatment. Both committees will monitor compliance every month.

According to the agreement at the time of allotment, change of land use (CLU) and recognition by the department concerned, private hospitals, health centres and dispensaries that have been allotted sites at a concession are obliged to provide 10 per cent beds free to weaker sections. In the super-speciality hospitals, subsidised rates at 30 per cent of normal charges for 20 per cent of functional beds will be charged in addition to the OPD concessions.

Similarly, educational societies, institutions and trusts which have been allotted sites by HUDA are required to reserve 10 per cent seats in schools for the poor.

They will charge the same fee from these students as charged in government schools. Further, 10 per cent seats in schools are to be reserved for students whose fee is to be determined on the basis of means and merit of individual students.

Chandigarh, January 14
The organisational elections of the Congress will be held in five phases. In the first phase, elections at the primary unit level will be held from January 15 to April 30.

The block-level elections will be covered in the second phase from May 15 to May 31.

In the third phase from June 7 to June 27, elections at the district level will be completed.

The elections at the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) level, including election of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) members and election of the party president, will be completed in the fourth phase from July 5 to July 25.

In the fifth phase, members of the Congress Working Committee will be elected.

Raju Parmar, former MP who is returning officer for the organisational elections in Haryana, took stock of the enrollment drive here today. He was informed by the PCC office that 5.5 lakh membership forms were printed in the state. About 2.5 lakh membership forms had been received at the PCC office till date.

Tomorrow (January 15) is the last date for receipt of forms.

The PCC office told Parmar that as the Ellenabad byelection was on January 20, the membership drive in Sirsa, Hisar and Fatehabad districts had been delayed.

This was because the party rank and file was busy campaigning in in Ellenabad.

Hence, there could be some delay in the first phase of the election process, but the next phase would see no hurdle, said party sources.

Gurgaon, January 14
The Gurgaon police in association with the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad arrested a man for allegedly passing important military information to Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan from Islampur village near here yesterday.

The arrested man identified as Mukeem (20) had visited Pakistan in 2009 with Naseer (23), an ISI agent, who was arrested from Meerut four days ago.

After arresting Mukeem, the local police handed him over to the UP anti-terrorist cell. The officials said they had received the information that Mukeem had been hiding in Gurgaon and they found him from a saloon here. Mukeem was working with his brother at Saleem Hair Dresser here. The officials said the police came to know about his whereabouts from Naseem.

According to the police, Naseer is Mukeem’s aunt’s son.

The police said the ISI had asked Mukeem to collect information regarding the Army’s movement, formation and other details of the country.

After returning from Pakistan, he used to call on one particular number there. The ATC is trying to locate the mobile number.

Ellenabad, January 14
The Election Commission of India has directed the Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer, Sirsa, to file a complaint with the police or a magistrate against Deepak Goyal, an Independent candidate contesting the Ellenabad byelection, under Section 127-A of the Representation of People Act, 1951.

The Indian National Lok Dal had filed a complaint against Goyal for issuing an advertisement in an evening paper, declaring his support to the Congress nominee, Bharat Singh Beniwal.

He had also sought votes for the Congress candidate

A letter issued by the commission today said that action taken in this regard should be informed to it by Friday noon.

Jind, January 14
The police today arrested Ramesh Kumar for allegedly murdering a youth, who was found dead in Kharal village three days ago. The arrested is said to be the friend of the victim. He has admitted to have killed his friend over Rs 20 that was won by the victim in gambling that day.

The accused, who was nabbed from the bus stop at Belarkha village here today, told the police that he and Shailender of Kharal village had been friends for the past few years and used to gamble together. Sources said Shailender won Rs 20 from Ramesh that led to a quarrel, following which the accused hit the victim on his head with a brick. Ramesh fled the spot after hitting Shailender, who later succumbed to his injuries.

Jind: The police has arrested a woman for allegedly killing her daughter three months ago in Bibipur village. Sources said the mother killed the girl on October 27 as she was suspicious of her character. A complaint was lodged by her husband Rajbir. Though the police had registered a murder case against the woman, the arrest was made last night. It was alleged that the woman identified as Bala Devi had assaulted her daughter (19) with sticks that led to her death.

In another case, the district court sentenced as many as 11 persons to three years’ imprisonment in an incident of assault on a family at Singhwal village in the district two years ago.