Facing allegations of “irregularities” in grant of Change of Land Use (CLU) licences in four villages of Gurgaon during his tenure in the wake of Justice S.N. Dhingra commission report over a month ago, former Haryana Chief MinisterBhupinder Singh Hooda, speaking exclusively to The Hindu , has maintained that his government “did not show favour to anyone” and not an “inch of government land was allotted to anyone out of turn”.
“We acted according to the law and no loss was caused to the State exchequer,” said Mr. Hooda, adding that the Dhingra panel was set up to target him and Mr. Robert Vadra.
“Had the BJP government been really serious about any alleged irregularities, it would have ordered a probe into grant of all licences during my tenure and not just in four villages of Gurgaon. Also, the BJP government had no complaint or material on record to indicate any irregularity in grant of CLU licences in the four villages in question at the time of setting up of the commission. Even Mr. Dhingra, in his order, maintained that the commission has no specific complaint against me, no specific complaint about my conduct and no statements with adverse comments to confront me with,” said Mr. Hooda.
Saying that the CBI case pertaining to the alleged multi-crore land scam in Manesar was an attempt to “implicate” him, Mr. Hooda clarified that the acquisition process for the over 900-acre land in question was initiated in 2004 during the regime of the previous Chautala government.
“A large chunk of land for which declaration under Section 6 was issued included constructed houses and schools and when we came to power the then Minister of State for External Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh requested to withdraw acquisition for land in Manesar. Also, farmers challenged the land acquisition proceedings in court by way of 95 writ petitions and as a cumulative effect of these developments my government decided to withdraw acquisition proceedings,” said Mr. Hooda.
The former CM added that he had full faith in the judicial system of the country.
On Khattar government
Terming the two-year tenure of the Khattar government an “utter disappointment”, Mr. Hooda said that the people had much hope from the BJP government, but all their hopes had been dashed.
“They feel cheated. All sections of society, including Dalits, minorities, employees and small traders, are suffering. The farmers are on the verge of ruin, they are fetching far less prices than the Minimum Support Price for their produce. Though the price of clothes, rice, chips and other end products have not gone down, the rates for agricultural produce such as paddy and cotton have halved.”
Taking a dig at the government for frequent transfers, Mr. Hooda said: “This government is good at only three things: Badla (revenge), Badli (transfers) and Naam Badlu (changing names). They have changed the names of many of our schemes such as Ladli scheme to Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao .”
Mr. Hooda said that Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar getting injured at a party function in Delhi recently was “unfortunate”. “It should not have happened. It was a minor clash between two groups of workers and Mr. Tanwar was hurt probably trying to intervene. Such minor clashes between workers take place in all political parties. A similar fight broke out at BJP president’s Amit Shah’s meeting in Surat last month,” said Mr. Hooda, rubbishing all allegations of factionalism in the State Congress unit.
Had the BJP government been really serious about any alleged irregularities, it would have ordered a probe into grant of all licences during my tenure and not just in four villages of Gurgaon
