KEEPING TABS ON POWER POLITICS IN PUNJAB, HARYANA, HIMACHAL PRADESH AND J&K
CAPT & HIS B’DAY MESSAGES
Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh celebrated his 78th birthday on Wednesday and was greeted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi among others. But some got his age wrong and extended greetings to the two-time chief minister for his 76th birthday. The confusion was caused by the incorrect date and year of birth given in his profile on the website of the Punjab assembly as per which Amarinder was born in 1944. His date of birth as per the Lok Sabha website is March 11, 1942. And, the CM also posted a tweet on March 11, thanking everyone for their greetings and good wishes on his birthday.
WARRING’S FLATTERING FB POST
A birthday message by Gidderbaha MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warring to
chief minister Amarinder Singh last week became a talking point in political circles. In a flattering Facebook post, Warring wrote, “You stand for the truth and you stand for the masses .... may your courage never die off...may you be surrounded by helpers to make your work easy”. The CM had appointed Warring and five other Congress MLAs as advisers, but they “quit” their posts last month after the governor returned the Office of Profit Bill 2019 without giving assent.
JOHL CLEARS THE AIR
“Mere modde te rakh ke bandook chalai ja rehe hai” (My shoulder is being used to fire the shots) is how farm economist and Central University, Bathinda, chancellor Sardara Singh Johl reacted on social media to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Jagmeet Singh Brar’s claims at a rally last week. In his speech, Brar said that Johl had contradicted CM Amarinder Singh’s statement that he would lay his life if any water flows into Haryana and Rajasthan. “Johl saab said water is already flowing into the two states and what CM saab is saying has no meaning,” the Akali leader said in the presence of former CM Parkash Singh Badal.
GOGI’S WILD IDEA
At a time when a fund-starved Ludhiana municipal corporation (MC) is struggling to even pay salaries to its employees, councillor Gurpreet Gogi, who is also the chairman of Punjab Small Industries and Exports Corporation (PSIEC), sent the members into peals of laughter with his suggestion the other day. Gogi came up with a proposal to purchase a firefighting helicopter to douse fires in the city with direct water drop. The members took digs at Gogi, asking him to purchase the chopper from PSIEC funds. The MC does not have funds to take up development works in the city and is planning to avail a loan for the same, they said.
SULKING HARYANA IPS OFFICER TAKES TO TWITTER
Haryana IPS officer OP Singh, who was last week stripped of the charge 0f principal secretary, sports, less than two months after he was appointed, articulated his thoughts on his rather unceremonious removal on Twitter. Singh, an ADGP-rank officer who also held the charge of director, sports, earlier, tweeted: “You build a neglected department into a global brand in five years. You return after eight years, thinking that you are the coach with the mandate to revive its lost sheen. You move on when you discover that you are not.” It is learnt that minister of state for sports Sandeep Singh, who was a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) in the state police before taking the poll plunge, was at odds with his former senior in the police department. Perhaps, the erstwhile junior-senior backdrop marred the new relationship between the minister and the officer.
CONG MLA GIVES UP SECURITY
Congress MLA from NIT Faridabad, Neeraj Sharma, has done quite the unprecedented by giving up the two police personnel deputed for his security. The first-time MLA says that security personnel have become a status symbol for most politicians and their deployment meant a diversion of resources and unnecessary financial burden on the government as well as the MLAs. Sharma also travels by Haryana Roadways Volvo buses whenever he comes to Chandigarh and is often seen riding Uber bike for local commute.
SIBLINGS & THEIR STANCE
Haryana deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala and his younger sibling, Digvijay Chautala often seem to speak different languages on matters of public interest. Digvijay recently made a public statement at Palwal that the JJP has succeeded in paving the way for grant of 75 % reservation in private sector jobs to Haryana candidates and the cabinet has also given its approval in this regard. The truth is the cabinet had on January 31 deferred the proposal to approve the draft private sector quota Bill and referred it to law secretary for vetting. The much-hyped bill could not be tabled in the recent assembly session, creating uncertainty over its future. Dushyant on Friday said at a rally that the government did not want to act in haste and would enact a law to provide such quota in the next 59 days.
RS NOMINATION: SELJA, SURJEWALA TAKE THE HIT
The decision of the Congress high command to nominate former MP Deepender
Hooda for a Rajya Sabha berth from Haryana has disappointed the state Congress chief Kumari Selja, also the sitting Upper House MP. However, by completely overlooking AICC spokesperson Randeep Surjewala for any of the RS seats up for grabs across the states, the party leadership seems to have played a cruel joke on him. The former minister had put his political career at peril by contesting Jind byelection just to oblige the high command. Not only he lost Jind bypoll badly but this also adversely impacted his prospects in his home constituency of Kaithal during the assembly polls.
VIRBHADRA COMMANDS RESPECT
Himachal Congress leader and former chief minister Virbhadra Singh has not been attending the assembly session due to ill-health. When the 86year-old veteran leader, the older member of the state assembly, came to the state assembly and accompanied chief minister Jai Ram Thakur and other MLAs for a group photograph outside speaker Vipin Parmar’s office, members from both Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were eager to get themselves clicked with him. BJP’s Nurpur legislator Rakesh Pathania heaped praise on Singh. “Singh is still a king,” he said.
POLITICS OVER SCHOOLS IN HIMACHAL HOUSE
During the budget session of the Himachal assembly last week, education minister Suresh Bhardwaj
announced rationalisation of government schools, saying there were 80 schools without a single student and another 6,127 schools had an enrolment of less than 20. The MLAs responded differently to the announcement. Congress legislator Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu asked Bhardwaj to close down schools without students in his constituency whereas lone CPI (M) member Rakesh Singha requested the minister with folded hands not to close down any schools. Now that’s what is called the vote bank politics.