Congress insults Dalit leaders like Selja, says Amit Shah in Haryana

Chandigarh: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said the Congress has always disrespected Dalit leaders, be it Ashok Tanwar or Kumari Selja, and even did not give Dr B.R. Ambedkar Bharat Ratna when it was in power.

The Minister said this at a public meeting in Tohana town in Haryana's Fatehabad district on Monday.

“If there is anybody who can protect the SC (Scheduled Caste) and OBC (Other Backward Class) reservation, it is PM (Narendra) Modi,” he said while slamming Congress leader Rahul Gandhi over his remarks on the reservation.

Saying that in the last 10 years of the BJP government in the state, Shah said, “Haryana has become free from corruption and hooliganism and is rapidly progressing on the path of development.”

The districts of Rohtak, Sonepat, Jind and Hisar are known as the state’s Jat heartland although the community also has a formidable presence in Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Sirsa and Fatehabad. Jats, who constitute about 25 per cent of the state’s electorate, have traditionally dominated politics in the state.

Eyeing to woo the voters in the region, who largely constitute Sikhs, HM Shah asked Rahul Gandhi, “What are you talking about? You have a history of disrespecting the Sikh community. Thousands of Sikhs were killed on roads during the Delhi riots and your party was at the helm. Even children and mothers were not spared…Rahul baba, if you want to do something, wear a turban, go to a gurdwara and apologise to our Sikh brothers.”

Minister Shah was addressing a Jan Ashirvaad Rally in support of the party’s candidates Devender Singh Babli from Tohana and former parliamentarian Sunil Duggal from Ratia with top party leaders in attendance.

Clarifying the recruitment of all Agniveers in government jobs after retirement from the India Army, Shah said, “About Agniveer, Rahul Baba is misguiding the youth. I am firm in what I say, and today I am saying that none of the Agniveer of Haryana will be left. The Haryana government will provide them jobs equivalent to their pension,” he said,

He said middlemen in Delhi are waiting for the Congress to come into power in Haryana. “I want to ask the people of Tohana, would you want to give Haryana in the hands of the middlemen?”

The BJP leader said the Congress governments were there to make “Delhi’s son-in-law happy. Farmers’ land was allotted at cheap rates. In (Bhupinder) Hooda Saheb’s government, (property) dealers have much say, the son-in-law has a say and the corrupts have a say. The BJP has ended the government of the dealer and son-in-law”.

“Hooda Saheb has promised to give two lakhs jobs. It’s in the manifesto of the Congress and I want to ask the leaders of the Congress party that these two lakh jobs will be given on the ‘kharchi-parchi’ (corruption-favouritism) system,” Shah said in his 25-minute address in Hindi.

Haryana will go to the polls for the 90-member assembly on October 5 with the counting on October 8.

In the 2019 Assembly elections, the BJP, which won 40 seats, well below the 75-plus target, and was six short of a majority in the 90-member Assembly, announced an alliance with the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) led by Dushyant Chautala, a great-grandson of former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal.

The rival Congress won 31 seats, while the less-than-year-old JJP, which broke away from the state's once major regional Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) owing to family disputes, won 10 seats. Seven Independents and one each of the INLD and the Haryana Lokhit Party had also won.

In the 2014 Assembly polls, BJP had won 47 seats and formed the government in the state for the first time.