Modi to unveil Sir Chhotu Ram’s statue in Rohtak

CHANDIGARH/KARNAL: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Rohtak visit on October 9 — that comes about two weeks before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Haryana completes four years — is being converted into a mega political event with focus on placating the Jats and farmers.

During the visit, PM Modi will unveil a 64-foot-tall statue of farmer and Jat leader Sir Chhotu Ram, the maternal grandfather of Union steel minister Birender Singh, at his native village Garhi Sampla in Rohtak district.

Modi will also visit a museum where belongings of Sir Chhotu Ram are kept. Later, the Prime Minister will lay the foundation stone of the rail coach factory at Barhi village in Sonepat. Haryana has transferred 160-acre land to Railways for this purpose.

The theme song of this rally is set to be both development and reaching out to the agitating Jats and the peasantry ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and giving fillip to the morale of the BJP workers and mass contact programmes the BJP has already launched in the state.

As per BJP sources, the party will scale up the statue-unveiling function into a state-level political event as the Prime Minister is unlikely to attend the proposed rally on November 1 to mark the foundation day of the state and celebrate four years of the firstever BJP government in Haryana. “In case of non-availability of Prime Minister, BJP national president Amit Shah would attend the November 1 function,” Khattar said.

Also politically significant is the rally venue, Garhi-Sampla, the citadel of former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda that is also a part of Rohtak Lok Sabha constituency being represented by his son Deepender Hooda.

Union minister Birender, who had ended his 40-year association with the Congress to join BJP in 2014, is Hooda’s staunch political foe.

This rally is also being seen as a popularity test of Birender, who has been attempting to project himself as the key Jat leader of the BJP in Haryana. The Union minister is touring across the state, inviting people to the rally. On Thursday, he was in Kaithal.

“This is not a rally of a particular party. It is being organised for all 36 communities and people should participate,” Birender Singh said at Kaithal.

Seeking reservation and withdrawal of cases registered during the 2016 agitation, the Jats are agitated with the Khattar government for not fulfilling the promises. The Jat-dominated Rohtak district remained the epicenter of February 2016 Jat quota stir. “During the visit to Garhi-Sampla, the nerve centre of 2016 agitation, the PM should ask chief minister Khattar why did he not fulfil the promises made to members of community several times,” Yashpal Malik, All India Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti president, said, demanding that PM Modi should fulfil his promise of giving reservation to the Jat community he had made in 2015.

THE PM WILL ALSO LAY THE FOUNDATION STONE OF THE RAIL COACH FACTORY AT BARHI VILLAGE IN SONEPAT