Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, in an apparent reference to the recent CBI raids at his residence in connection with an alleged land scam in Manesar, on Friday said that the BJP considers him to be a roadblock in the realisation of its political dreams and wants to implicate him in false cases.
He was addressing a massive gathering of farmers outside mini-secretariat in Ambala in protest against the Central Government's Crop Insurance Scheme.
Buoyed by the massive turnout, Mr. Hooda said he never indulged in any illegal activity during his over a decade-long tenure as Chief Minister, but he was still being targeted by all, including the BJP and Indian National Lok Dal. “The BJP believes that if they could get rid of Hooda, no one will be left to raise the voice of the people. But this dream of the BJP will never come true,” he asserted.
Continuing his protest against the Crop Insurance Scheme, Mr. Hooda, who held a similar protest march in Karnal last month, said he would continue his agitation against the plan till the time the BJP either decided to withdraw it or agreed to pay the premium on behalf of farmers. He said there were several “anti-farmer” provisions in the scheme which were aimed at benefiting the insurance companies.
“It is for the first time that farmers would be forced to pay income tax for sale and purchase of land and it is not acceptable at all,” said Mr. Hooda.
Taking a dig at Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for ordering frequent transfers, Mr. Hooda said the Chief Minister appeared to be playing Rubik's Cube with the bureaucracy for the past two years and had still failed to find a right combination. He dubbed the present regime a “Name Changer” while giving examples of Gurgaon, Mewat and the Food and Supplies Department. “They are not game changers, they are name changers,” quipped Mr. Hooda.
The former Chief Minister said there was an atmosphere of disappointment across the State, the energy was missing from the public life, political rivals were being implicated in false cases and the bureaucracy was living under fear.
He, however, exhorted the masses to wait patiently for three years for the tenure of the present government to end and said that he would return to power to fix all ills.
The protesters, who had reached the mini-secretariat in the form of a protest march led by Mr. Hooda and other Congress leaders, submitted a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner addressed to Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solnaki on the issue of Crop Insurance Scheme.
