Ellenabad, January 16
As the battle for this assembly seat has reached a feverish pitch with just two days of campaigning left, history is in favour of the Chautala clan, the backbone of the INLD.

The Chautalas, who have fielded Abhey Singh, younger son of former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala, have never lost from Ellenabad, except once, in the living memory. So much so, the elder Chautala started his legislative journey from Ellenabad when it was not a reserved constituency. Later, the constituency was reserved but still the Chautala’s party held the sway, barring 1991, when Mani Ram Keharwal won it for the Congress.

After Ellenabad was de-reserved during the last delimitation, Chautala again won from here in the last assembly elections. Chautala, who had won from Uchana Kalan also, vacated Ellenabad, necessitating the byelection.

A political wag, of whom Sirsa has no dearth, remarked: “Bharat Singh Beniwal of the Congress has the government with him; the INLD has the history behind it.” As the cliché goes, will history repeat itself? It will be known only on January 23, when the ballots will be counted.

Otherwise also, the politics of Sirsa district revolve around the Chautalas - either one is with them or against them. It is same as is the case in Bhiwani, where Bansi Lal used to be the axis of the district politics or Rohtak where Bhupinder Singh Hooda occupies the same position.

However, there is a major difference. In Rohtak, it is love which bonds the people to Hooda. In Sirsa, it is the awe of the Chautalas that binds the people to them.

It is this “awe” factor, which the Congress hopes to encash in the byelection. The party is heavily dependent on its “silent vote bank”. The Congress candidate had polled about 48,000 votes in October, a no mean achievement against the former Chief Minister.

Poll managers of the Congress claim that many of even those who have been actively campaigning for the INLD will ultimately go for their candidate when they will be in the polling booth.

The INLD, which has the benefit of playing on its home turf, obviously do not agree. Its leaders say the people of Sirsa know who is their own and who has come merely to seek their votes, to be forgotten later.

Ellenabad, January 16
Ellenabad, located on the north banks of the Ghaggar, was once a favourite hunting ground for Britishers.

Now, political parties are hunting for votes in Ellenabad, earlier known as Kharial village.

Ellena, wife of Robert Hutch, Hisar Division Commissioner during the British rule, suffered labour pains when she was in this area for hunting.

She delivered a baby in Kharial village with the help of the local people. Hutch renamed the village as Ellenabad after his wife’s name and developed it as a town.

Political parties are “hunting” for votes in Ellenabad for the past 20 days as campaigning for the bypoll has reached its peak with only two days left for active campaigning.

People of Ellenabad are as simple as they were when Ellena happened to be here.

Witnessing elections for the third time since last year’s parliamentary elections, people have been so acclimatised with poll that they greet everyone, including journalists, with folded hands and assure them for their votes.

With stakes sky-high for the ruling Congress and the INLD, both parties have made strong fortification of the constituency by assigning duties to their ministers, MLAs, former ministers and former MLAs in all 80 villages of the assembly seat.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, his son Deepender Singh and ministers in the Hooda Cabinet have been campaigning in Ellenabad for Congress nominee Bharat Singh Beniwal, while virtually all male members of the Chautala clan and INLD MLAs, former MLAs and former ministers are campaigning for Abhey Singh Chautala.

Bollywood actors Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty will arrive in Ellenabad to seek votes for Chautala tomorrow.

The two actors would hold a road show in the entire assembly segment tomorrow, said a note by the INLD.

Bhupinder Singh Hooda and AICC in charge for Haryana Prithviraj Chauhan will address a rally in favour of Beniwal on January 18, the last day of campaigning, while former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala will address a rally in Nathusari Chopta on the same day.

Ellenabad, January 16
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda began his second and final leg of campaigning for the Ellenabad bypoll here today. A large number of his ministerial colleagues fanned out in the constituency to provide impetus to Congress nominee Bharat Singh Beniwal.

The INLD also intensified its campaign to retain the seat won by Om Prakash Chautala in the assembly elections held in October.

Accompanied by state Congress chief Phool Chand Mullana, minister Gopal Kanda, Ranjit Singh, KV Singh and other Congress leaders of Sirsa district, Hooda campaigned in 19 villages of Ellenabad.

“An opportunity to become partner in a government that is already in existence comes rarely for electorates,” said Hooda while addressing people from the “Vijay Rath” in Budhamera village.

He said the Congress had always believed in development, while the INLD was known for divisive politics.

Earlier, addressing mediapersons in Sirsa, Hooda accused former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and his sons of misleading people on the issue of development.

A number of Hooda’s ministers and parliamentary secretaries like Randeep Singh Surjewala, OP Jain, Paramvir Singh and Sharda Rathore campaigned for Beniwal.

“Chautala has been misleading people by claiming that the Hooda government’s countdown will begin after this election. As a matter of fact, countdown for the INLD that came down to 31 from 32 after assembly poll has already begun,” said Surjewala, while addressing a meeting in Mallekan village.

Chautala, meanwhile, repeated today that the Hooda government would fall after the Ellenabad bypoll.

“The government will become a part of history after the January 20 bypoll as it has been constituted against peoples’ wish,” said Chautala while addressing a meeting in Shekhupura village.

Parminder Singh Dhindsa, a minister in the Parkash Singh Badal government in Punjab, and Tarlochan Singh, Rajya Sabha member from Haryana, also campaigned for INLD nominee Abhey Singh Chautala.

Ellenabad, January 16
The candidate of an unrecognised party has spent more on campaigning than the candidates of the two main recognised parties.

Kusum Chaudhary of the Samast Bharatiya Party had spent a little more than Rs 2.95 lakh till January 12, when the district election authorities compiled the expenditure of the candidates last. The next compilation will be done on January 18.

Abhey Singh Chautala of the INLD had spent Rs 2,06,771, while Congress nominee Bharat Singh Beniwal spent Rs 2,06,072 on campaigning till January 12.

Interestingly, hundreds of vehicles of both the Congress as well as the INLD have been campaigning in Ellenabad for the past 20 days in the bypoll that has very high stakes for both political parties.

Meanwhile, FIRs have been registered against unidentified persons, who were trying to install hoardings of the SBP nominee at Nathusari Chopta.

Chandigarh, January 16
Justifying the announcement of subsidised foodgarins for below poverty line families, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, in his reply to a notice by the Election Commission of India, said the same was a part of the Congress election manifesto.

The ECI, in a notice to Hooda for poll code violation during the Ellenabad bypoll, had sought an explanation for the announcement. The INLD had complained to the ECI that the CM had announced rice and wheat at Rs 3 per kg for BPL families while campaigning in Ellenabad for the Congress candidate.

Sources in the state Election Department said the reply had been forwarded to the ECI and a final decision in the matter was awaited.

Karnal, January 16
Irked over delay in deciding the case of five Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) members, who had defected to the Congress, party supremo Kuldeep Bishnoi today said he would seek the intervention of the high court for issuing directive to the Speaker for taking expeditious decision in this regard.

Talking to mediapersons here, he said defection by these HJC members was betrayal of peoples’ trust and called for social boycott of such leaders.

Lashing out at the Congress government for indulging in horse trading and encouraging defections, he said it was shameful that no action had been taken against these MLAs. Accepting the blame for the defeat of the party in the last assembly elections, he said being the president of the party he took the onus of everything that went wrong due to wrong decisions. However, he attributed the poor performance of the party to breaking up of alliance with the BSP and failure to forge alliance with the BJP.

Replying to whether the HJC would contest the forthcoming municipal elections, he said the party cadre was not so strong at present and his first priority was to strengthen the party by achieving the target to enroll 3.5 lakh more members. “Presently, we are preparing for bypoll in the five assembly constituencies of HJC members who deserted the party”, he quipped.

Bhishnoi further said the exit of Rakesh Kamboj, who left the HJC to join the INLD, would not affect the party as the core members and loyalists were still with the party and Kamboj had joined the party after four years.

When reminded that his father Bhajan Lal had adopted the same tactics in 1982, Bishnoi tried to wriggle out by taking the plea that the Anti-Defection Act had not been passed then. He said the Anti-Defection Act was in place now and any action in violation the Act was illegal and undemocratic.

Karnal, January 16
Tall claims of the state being No 1 by the government notwithstanding, the situation in government schools is dismal. The government has failed even to post teachers in schools against the sanctioned posts and in Karnal district alone 1,185 out of 5,587 posts are lying vacant.

As per the data extracted from the Education Department, the vacant posts do not include 868 posts against which “guest teachers” have been appointed to cope with the shortage. Actually, only 3,534 regular teachers are working in 80 government senior secondary schools, 143 high schools, 102 middle schools and 493 primary schools.

Out of 143 posts of headmasters, 114 are lying vacant while in case of principals the situation was better with 17 out of 80 posts unoccupied.

In school lecturer cadre, 74 posts against sanctioned strength of 597 posts were vacant and guest teachers had been engaged against 76 posts. The situation was no better in primary schools with 354 posts of JBT teachers lying vacant against 2,248 sanctioned posts and guest teachers working against 552 posts.

Even in case of classical and vernacular teachers, 264 out of 1,177 posts were vacant while in case of masters 813 regular teachers were working against sanctioned strength of 1,342.

Education and Health Minister Geeta Bhukal had recently announced that services of guest teachers would be dispensed with and in future no guest teacher would be appointed.

In case she implemented her assurance into action, 2,053 teachers would be required in Karnal district alone and the number across the state would run into thousands.

The guest teachers are paid much less as compared to regular teachers. These teachers have been protesting for regularisation of their services and replacing them by regular teachers was the only way to streamline the education system, state secretary of Haryana Rajkiya Adhyapak Sangh Krishan Kumar Nirman said.

He also demanded that a set policies should be formulated to ensure timely appointment of teachers to fill the newly created posts and those lying vacant so that the studies of the students, specially in rural areas, did not suffer due staff shortage.

DEO Kamlesh Sharma said she was aware of shortage of teachers but the number could not be so high. “I don’t have the information readily available with me. I will check up the facts on Monday,” she said.

However, Nirman said the data was correct and the statement of the DEO indicated the callous attitude of the government.

Ambala, January 16
The BJP will launch a statewide agitation to protest against the price hike. The decision was taken at a meeting of the core group of the Haryana BJP here recently.

In charge of the state BJP in party affairs Vijay Goel, while talking to mediapersons here, said the party would stage a dharna and hold a protest march from January 18 to 25 at block and district levels in protest against the price hike and a state-level rally of the party would be organised in Ambala Cantt on February 7.

In the first week of March, the party would gherao Parliament in this regard.

He said the state governments were not responsible for the price hike, adding that the union government was mainly responsible for it. He said the farmers had been committing suicide in Congress-ruled states.

Jhajjar, January 16
Working in the direction to make the police-public relation cordial, IGP (Rohtak Range) V Kamaraja has now taken initiative of bringing change in the behaviour of police officials while dealing with people.

The IGP has selected one police station as model police station in each five districts - Rohtak, Jhajjar, Panipat, Karnal and Sonepat - falling under his jurisdiction. The cops are also being given training on how they should behave with people.

The IGP said city police station in Jhajjar, civil line police station in Rohtak, Indri police station in Karnal, city police station in Sonepat and civil line police station in Panipat have been selected as model police stations.

“The motive behind the move is to create amiable atmosphere between the police and the public as the crime can not be curbed without public support. But the people will co-operate only when the police will behave nicely,” Kamaraja said.

The IGP maintained that if the experiment evoked positive response, then it could be replicated in other police stations.

“During the training programme, the policemen are being told that how they should behave with a complainant when he to the police station for getting a complaint lodged. They should behave courteously with him and take action firmly so that the complainant is satisfied,” maintained the IGP.

Karnal, January 16
The Karnal jail has become the first prison in the state to start Bachelors Priority Programme (BPP) with the help of IGNOU special study centre.

The BPP, which is a six-month course, would enable the prisoners to take admission in the bachelors’ programme offered by the IGNOU without passing Class XII and those above 18 years of age will be eligible for admission in undergraduate courses without any qualification.

Under the course, educated prisoners would be selected by the IGNOU to teach inmates and would also be paid suitable remuneration. Jail superintendent Jagit Singh would be the coordinator for the course and examinations would be held in the jail itself. More than 100 prisoners have registered themselves and books, examination forms, stationary and other requirements would be given free of cost.

The BPP is a non-formal channel by the IGNOU started a few years ago for the special target group who want to continue their studies, said IGNOU regional director Ashok Sharma.

The programme would go a long a way in rehabilitation of prisoners after they were released from the prison.

Gurgaon, January 16
Municipal Corporation Gurgaon (MCG) yesterday launched door-to-door garbage collection facility to tackle the problem. The task has been entrusted to Antony Waste Handling Cell Private limited.

The first phase of the facility was given a go-ahead by Municipal Commissioner RK Khullar from Rajiv Nagar area. Civil Lines and Sarhaul village areas would also be covered under the phase. Khullar said the facility had been taken up in an approved colony at Sarhaul village (Sector 18), an unapproved colony (Rajiv Nagar) and posh colony (Civil Lines) on experimental basis.

The second phase would start only after the residents of these colonies covered under phase I were satisfied. The facility has been started to make the city “garbage free”.

The Municipal Commissioner said: “Employees of the consignee company would go door-to-door and collect garbage from every household in the area given to them. The garbage would then be taken to the solid waste management plant at Bandhwari, where it would be disposed off in a scientific manner.”

The consignee company has deployed about 30 vehicles in the three colonies for garbage collection. Rajesh Kurup, marketing manager with the Antony Waste Handling Cell Private Limited, said the garbage collection vehicles were designed similar to those used in US. He stated that 17 small vehicles, 10 big vehicles and a JCB were deployed for collection and disposal of the solid waste in the three colonies of the MCG”.