Manohar Lal Khattar begins public outreach with Lok Sabha & Assembly polls in mind

About a year ahead of the Lok Sabha and subsequent assembly polls, the Manohar Lal Khattar led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in the firing line of the Opposition. The traditional parties – Congress and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) along with rookie Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have launched a series of public outreach programmes after the recent wheat harvest.

To counter this onslaught, Khattar who is the face of the party in the state has started a series of road shows in major towns and cities apart from having a direct dialogue with the farmers in the villages in this predominantly rural state. Farmer issues and concerns will form the core of the political narrative in the state for both the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.

In his zeal, Khattar has disclosed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon announce implementation of on of the key recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission that pertains to a Minimum Support Price (MSP) that is 1.5 times of the production inputs. According to a government spokesperson, Khattar made this disclosure while interacting with the farmers of Pai and Habri villages in Kaithal on Friday.

He has also been urging the people to remain vigilant of the Opposition leaders who may try to mislead them through cycle rally, jail bharo andolan and rath yatra. While the Congress president Ashok Tanwar has been carrying out a cycle yatra, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has embarked on a Jan Kranti Yatra and the INLD has launched a Jail Bharo Andolan on the emotive issue of completion of the Satluj Yamuna Link (SYL) canal and getting Haryana's water share from Punjab besides other concerns regarding water availability.

He told the villagers on Friday that in order to address the problem of overflowing of water ponds in different villages, the state government has set up a Pond Management Authority under which the excess water flowing from the ponds would be utilized for irrigation.

Pointing that there is a need to check the wastage of water in rural areas, Khattar said sewerage facilities would be made available in Mahagrams having population over 10,000. In the first phase, 16 such villages have been included under the scheme while a total of 126 villages have been identified.

Khattar has been exuding confidence that the BJP would return to power on its own. Recently the INLD had entered into a pre poll pact with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) while there also a talk of

the opposition joining hands and fielding common candidates for the Lok Sabha polls. Khattar has been conveying that the alliance of opposition in the state is a mismatch.

Since there are only a few months to go before the model code of conduct comes into effect, he regular exercise of showering sops has also started. Khattar has announced that the work to prepare yellow cards for the poor and below poverty line families will commence from July 1, 2018 and one lakh yellow cards would be distributed. At a public meeting in Dhand in Kaithal that being the chief minister it is his responsibility to maintain a direct dialogue with the people and in the same series 'Mukhyamantri se Seedhi Baat' programme has been started from Pundri assembly segment on Friday. He has been playing up Modi's 'Ujjwala' and 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' programmes in his meetings claiming that the sex ratio that stood at 850 girls per 1000 boys in 2015 has increased to 915 girls per 1000 boys in 2018. He has been claiming that he has so far made 4800 announcements on various development initiatives out of which work on 3300 have been completed.

Offering another sop he has announced that the Maadhogarh-Mahenderagarh-Narnaul-Rewari Heritage Circuit in southern Haryana would soon be developed as a tourism circuit under the centre's 'Swadesh Darshan Yojna' and Rs 100 crore would be spent for the purpose.

Of late he has been hinting that the electricity rates would soon be reduced in the state and consumers who do not have metres would be given an opportunity to pay their power bills on the basis of the average of last one year. Penalty and interest on such consumers would also be waived off. He had recently announced that the power tariff will be reduced for small and medium enterprises having connection below 20 kilowatt.

Khattar government has stood unraveled on various occasions particularly on the law and order front. It failed miserably in the face of violence on occasions like the Jat reservation stir of 2016, the mayhem caused by the followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim in 2017 and the violence by the followers of another godman Ram Pal in 2014. The record has been miserable when it comes to violence against women and Dalits as a massive hike in cases reported as come to light in the last four years.

The record has been equally bad when it comes to the targeting of minorities, particularly by the cow vigilantes. The government has been accused to playing divisive politics by pitting Jats against the remaining 35 biradaris, failing to curtail the continuing atrocities against Dalits and targeting the minorities, particularly the Muslims as was evident over the recent controversy about offering Namaaz in Gurugram.

These issues will be raised at a high pitch by the opposition as the polls approach. It remains to be see how Khattar tackles them in the days to come.