Chandigarh, November 8
Health services in government hospitals and dispensaries across Haryana were partially crippled with doctors proceeding on two days’ mass leave in support of the call given by the Haryana Civil Medical Service (HCMS) Association, here today.

While the morning began with a good response to the strike call in all government hospitals, the Community Health Centres (CHCs) and the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in various districts of the state, some doctors trickled in at the hospitals as the day progressed.

The General Hospital in Panchkula and the multi-speciality government hospital in Kaithal stood out as exceptions where nearly all doctors reported on duty as usual.

“We are satisfied with the response to our call for mass leave. The doctors will continue to be on leave tomorrow as well to press for our genuine demands, which the government is delaying needlessly. Since the Panchkula hospital functioned normally, we will send an HCMS delegation to persuade those doctors to join in the strike as well,” the president of the association, Rajesh Khyaliya, said.

Reports from Karnal, Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Faridabad, Ambala, Jind, Rohtak and Panipat, among others, suggested a near-total strike at the district hospitals and centres in the field.

However, the Principal Secretary, Health, Navraj Sandhu, said the strike was essentially limited to a handful of districts while most doctors reported on duty elsewhere.

“Contrary to the claims of the HCMS that the OPDs would not be functional, we have statistics to show that the doctors were on duty. While 1,400 patients came for the OPD in Palwal, we had an OPD of 892 in Narnaul, 2,600 in Kaithal, 1,200 in Faridabad and 1,400 in Bhiwani. Besides, most of the services were operational in the district hospitals with the help of contractual staff,” she said.

Haryana Health Minister Rao Narender Singh said the health services in the state functioned normally at most of the places. In many districts like Panchkula, Kaithal, Narnaul, Rewari, Bhiwani, Jhajjar, Rohtak and Faridabad, the doctors reported for duty. In other districts also, many of the doctors have reported for duty.

The Health Minister said that any disruption in the services would be taken seriously and the government would take strict action against those doctors who pressurise other doctors to not report for duty.

Rohtak: The health services in a majority of the government hospitals, primary and community health centres in both Rohtak and Jind districts were affected adversely.

According to the reports, around 80 doctors posted at the Civil Hospital and other heath centres remained off duty, which led to inconvenience to the patients.

However, the PGIMS hospital provided relief. It functioned as usual as it has not been a part of the agitation of the HCMS doctors. Dr Kuldeep Singh, president of the Rohtak unit of the HCMS Association, maintained that the mass leave had been successful in the district.

The strike has also been reported to be successful in Jhajjar and Jind districts .

Hisar: Work in government hospitals and health centres in the villages remained suspended. According to official sources, 109 out 135 government doctors posted at various places in the district went on mass leave.

Meanwhile, patients had to go to private hospitals for treatment. Most of the private and charitable hospitals in the city reported a surge in the number of patients who turned up at the OPD.

Panipat: The health services in the Civil Hospital along with a number of dispensaries across the state today took a hit.

The health authorities maintained that they had received a number of leave applications which were all dismissed to ensure that health services did not get affected in the district. However, the doctors restrained themselves from attending to the patients in the OPDs.

Ambala: The spokesman of the Ambala unit of the Haryana Civil Medical Services Association has claimed the strike was 90 per cent successful while Civil Surgeon, Ambala, Satish Aggarwal said that only 50 per cent of the doctors had proceeded on leave and OPD services were partially affected.

Sonepat: The patients who had come to the hospital for treatment had no other option except to take treatment at the private clinics.

Jind, November 8
The Haryana Tourism Karamchari Sangh has decided to launch a stir in support of its demands on December 11.

A spokesman of the sangh said here that before the statewide strike on December 11, members of the union would stage protests at the district level. Starting from Karnal on November 10, the employees would stage protests at various places, including Panchkula, Gurgaon, Hisar and other places, to pressure the authorities concerned into taking favourable action.

Despite an assurance provided to the union by the authorities concerned at a meeting held on June 3, the department had failed to even invite representatives’ of the union for talks.

The demands included the removal of pay anomalies, removal of the sealing on EPF, enhancement of the dress and other allowances, internal promotion, payment of LTC bills, regularisation of ad hoc staff and filling of vacant posts

The union has also asked the government to abort the move to privatise or dispose of land and infrastructure of the Tourism Department to private companies in name of development.

Extending its support to the union, the Sarva Karamchari Sangh, Haryana has asked the Chief Minister to intervene and resolve the matter.

Hisar, November 8
Even though the INLD nominee for the Adampur Assembly byelection has yet to file his nomination, the party workers have been directed to begin campaigning.

INLD Secretary-General Ajay Singh Chautala today addressed party workers at his residence here and assigned duties to them. He said the constituency had been divided into 15 zones for campaigning purposes.

Chautala said the Adampur constituency had been a pocket borough of the Bhajan Lal clan for the past 43 years but the voters were this time determined to see a change. Accusing the Bishnois of not allowing any person from the constituency to enter active politics, he said the Bishnois had neglected the area for decades.

He said a large number of villages had neither drinking water facilities nor canals to irrigate their fields. He said this was unthinkable as late Bhajan Lal was the Chief Minister of Haryana for about 12 years.

The party nominee for the Adampur seat, Ram Singh Baswana, a retired judge, said he would serve the people of his constituency to the best of his ability. He said he would ensure proper development of educational, health and other infrastructure.

On the other hand, Congress nominee from Adampur Kulbir Beniwal today launched his campaign on arrival here from Delhi.

He was received by party workers at the Barwala Road crossing. He garlanded a statue of late Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and then addressed his supporters.

He asked them to fan out in the area and campaign there. He said parties won elections on the strength of its cadres. He asked them to stay in their assigned areas till the end of polling.

Beniwal assured the voters of Adampur that if elected he would ensure that Adampur received ample development funds during the remaining three years of Congress rule in Haryana.

Fatehabad, November 8
Union Minister for Housing and Poverty Alleviation Selja and AICC general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Birender Singh have been requested to campaign for Jarnail Singh, Congress candidate from Ratia .

Ashok Tanwar, Congress MP from Sirsa, who has been looking after the election campaign of the party here , said the two leaders were expected to visit Ratia soon.

Jarnail Singh will file his nomination papers on November 12 in the presence of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, HPCC president Phool Chand Mulana and other senior leaders of the party. The party will also organise a rally on that day.

Hooda would also campaign in villages of Ratia on November 18 and November 23, the MP told mediapersons at Chief Parliamentary Secretary Prahlad Singh Gillankhera’s house today.

Selja, who represented the Sirsa parliamentary constituency twice before shifting base to Ambala, has a considerable influence over voters here. Her father, former minister Dalbir Singh, also represented Sirsa thrice in the Lok Sabha.

In a meeting of the HPCC after the Hisar debacle, the state Congress had passed a resolution against four senior party leaders, including Selja and Birender Singh and had sought action against them on Congress candidate Jai Parkash’s complaint.

Expressing confidence on Congress’ victory in Ratia, Tanwar said he had been spending a lion’s share of his MP Local Area Development funds in the Ratia Assembly constituency because this was represented by a member of the Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha and hence there was little development here.

Quoting figures, Tanwar said almost one fourth of his MPLAD funds had been spent on Ratia though he has to look after nine assembly seats, which formed part of his Sirsa parliamentary seat.

Meanwhile, Lakshman Dass Napa, who was a contender for the Congress ticket, would contest the byelection as an Independent candidate.

He would file his nomination tomorrow.

Ratia (Fatehabad), November 8
Will the ruling Congress be able to put up united fight against its rivals in the forthcoming byelection for the Ratia Assembly seat?

This is a million dollar question being asked in political circles here, particularly after the discordant notes heard among local Congress leaders on HPCC chief Phool Chand Mullana’s visit here on Friday.

Ratia, which goes to the polls on November 30 along with Adampur, is very crucial for the Congress, after the party’s humiliating debacle in Hisar last month.

Adampur being the pocket borough of Bhajan Lal’s family, the family has won seat on all 12 occasions since 1968, when Bhajan Lal jumped into politics, the Congress can eye on Ratia to salvage its position.

Though the INLD or its previous incarnations have won the seat on four out of the eight times Ratia went for polls since 1977, barring the elections fought on waves, infighting in the Congress has been responsible for its debacle here.

In the 1977 elections contested on the Janata Party wave, Peer Chand, father of BJP candidate Mahabir Prashad won the seat, while in 1987 and 2000 elections fought on waves in favour of the INLD, Atma Singh Gill and Jarnail Singh of the party won the polls, respectively.

Bansi Lal’s Haryana Vikas Party won the 1991 and 1996 elections, when Peer Chand and Ram Swaroop Rama won on his ticket, respectively. The only time Ratia went in favour of the Congress was in 1982, when the party’s candidate Neki Ram defeated Atma Singh Gill of the INLD.

In the last two elections held in 2005 and 2009, the INLD has been able to win the seat more due to the infighting in the Congress than by its own popularity. INLD’s Gian Chand Odh won the 2005 elections, by securing 36,623 votes against 26,572 votes polled by Congress nominee Gurdeep Singh Gill, considered a protégé of Hooda-Selja camp at that time.

However, Gill’s prospects were marred by a Congress rebel Mangat Ram Lalwas, a close confident of Bhajan Lal, who polled 18,934 votes.

Similarly, in the last elections held in 2009, the victorious INLD candidate Gian Chand Odh secured 50,095 votes against 47,713 polled by Congress’ Jarnail Singh, whose chances were marred by former Congress MP Atma Singh Gill’s son and a daughter, who both contested the election and secured 2,044 and 4,053 votes, respectively.

The conditions, however, would be different this time for the ruling party, as the INLD would try its best to retain its seat and the HJC-BJP alliance would make all-out efforts to repeat a Hisar here.

Yamunanagar, November 8
Additional Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister KK Khandelwal inaugurated the Kapal Mochan fair here today. Pilgrims in large numbers have descended on this town to take a holy dip in the three sarovars.

While addressing people at Guru Gobind Singh Martial Art Museum after inaugurating the mela, Khandelwal said Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had wanted to provide sufficient funds for public facilities in and around Kapal Mochan so that the pilgrims did not face any difficulty.

He further said that the mela administration had made large-scale arrangements for the pilgrims and a comprehensive plan had been made for the overall development of this sacred place.

Khandelwal said the Shrine Board would spend Rs 1 crore this year as desired by the Chief Minister and another Rs 1 crore would be spent next year, he added.

Nearly two lakh pilgrims from Haryana, Himachal, UP, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Delhi, belonging to all communities, had a holy dip in the three holy sarovars today. The historic fair will continue till November 10.

Yadav said seven to eight lakh people were likely to have a holy dip in the fair in four days.

Yadav said medical posts in each sector and one in the administrative block with the base hospital at Bilaspur had been functional for attending to the pilgrims’ health problems. Five ambulances, one in each sector and one in the base hospital had been stationed.

Jind, November 8
Contrary to the previous stormy meeting of the zila parishad, which had witnessed a commotion and had resulted in suspension of three members, including the INLD supremo and the Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Om Prakash Chautala, the meeting today concluded in a peaceful manner and the body revoked the suspension of all three members, including Chautala.

The meeting was chaired by Veena Deswal, the head of the zila parishad. It resolved to adopt certain resolutions, including setting up a committee to look into the functioning of the government schools in the district. Chautala, however, did not attend today’s meeting.

The first thing that was taken up at the meeting was the issue of revoking the suspension of Chautala and two other members of the zila parishad. This was done after a resolution was brought up by Parminder Dhull, a member and the INLD legislator from the Julana Assembly segment.

The zila parishad chief had suspended Chautala and two others after a ruckus at the previous meeting over the issue of disbursement of funds to the tune of Rs 32 lakh in the members’ constituencies.

While the chairperson of the zila parishad had even ordered the eviction of these members, the issue was settled after the intervention of other members.

Sonepat, November 8
A 21-year-old girl from Baiyanpur village was lucky to survive after a youth from Kalupur threw petrol on her and set her afire in front of the Milk Point complex on Sunday.

The fire was put out immediately by the persons working in the Milk Point and they not only took her to the local Civil Hospital but also overpowered the youth, identified as Mohan, and handed him over to the police.

According to doctors at the Civil Hospital, as the girl was wearing winter clothes, she received some burn injuries on her hands and feet. The girl had been admitted to the hospital and she was out of danger.

In her complaint to the police, she stated that she was working as an accountant at the Milk Point. When she reached the office, the alleged accused was standing in front of her office. He proposed to her to marry him, but she refused.

Irked over her negative response, he allegedly threw petrol on her and set her on fire.

Watching the incident, the other employees at Milk Point put out the fire immediately and overpowered the accused who was later handed over to the police.

Sirsa, November 8
A teenaged girl was abducted and gang-raped in a moving car by three unidentified youths in a Sirsa village on Sunday night. The three youths allegedly broke into the girl's house in Nejadela Khurd village last night and abducted her, said a police spokesperson, adding that they assaulted her uncle when he tried to protect her.

The victim was raped in a moving car and was later left in a field in Saharni village this morning, according to a complaint filed with the police.

Following a complaint lodged by the victim's family at Badagudha police station, a medical examination was conducted which confirmed rape.

The police said the girl was staying at her maternal uncle's place yesterday as her parents had gone to another village.