Focus on fighting COVID-19 instead of blowing own trumpet: Hooda to Hry govt

Hooda said the ruling BJP is not concerned about the life and welfare of the people at a time when the world is facing a grave pandemic. Hooda, who is also Leader of the Opposition in State Assembly, said the Haryana unit of BJP also plans to hold a virtual rally on June 14 to highlight the achievements of the Modi government at the Centre.

Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Thursday said the state’s ministers should focus on fighting the coronavirus pandemic instead of going door-to-door to highlight the achievements of the Narendra Modi government's first year of second term. Hooda said the ruling BJP is not concerned about the life and welfare of the people at a time when the world is facing a grave pandemic.

Hooda, who is also Leader of the Opposition in State Assembly, said the Haryana unit of BJP also plans to hold a virtual rally on June 14 to highlight the achievements of the Modi government at the Centre. “BJP is going to hold a virtual rally on June 14. As per a statement of Union Minister and BJP MP from Ambala, Rattan Lal Kataria, the party also intends to hold meetings with gathering of about 700-750 people in eleven districts later this month to highlight achievements of Central and state governments,” he said. “The first priority should be to fight this coronavirus pandemic, but they are blowing their own trumpet at this juncture. They should fight this disease first and save people. This is not time to go on a publicity overdrive,” Hooda told reporters here. With Haryana reporting 64 coronavirus deaths so far and the total number of infections inching close to 6,000 mark, Hooda said, “If the government is negligent in this fight at this juncture, Haryana could be facing a situation like Delhi or Mumbai soon. For the last few days, Haryana is daily adding 300 to 400 corona cases to its overall tally.” The senior Congress leader said that the BJP's “massive list of failures dwarfed their small list of so-called achievements”. “The government should take a look at its failures before counting its achievements. Today, unemployment in the state is among the highest in the country and recruitments for government jobs have not happened while those selected have not been given a joining date,” he said. Hooda said the “Khattar government is a government of failures, scams and U-turns”.

“If we hold rallies to count the failures of the government, then a crowd of lakhs will come together. But we have always believed that this is the time of mutual cooperation rather than political confrontation. We can hold all the programmes we want after we defeat this epidemic. Right now it is wrong to hold any kind of political event,” Hooda added. Hooda also hit out at the government on farmers' issue, saying they were already under distress and the pandemic has further aggravated their miseries. “But the ruling dispensation this year chose to experiment by putting new conditions in crop procurement to later imposing restrictions on paddy cultivation and now coming out with a new rice shoot policy aimed to indirectly hit the paddy farmers,” he said.

Rice shoots are temporary openings in water channels of the irrigation department issued to farmers for a limited period for their rice crop. Earlier, Hooda went to the residence of Independent MLA Gopal Kanda to mourn the death of his mother.

Hooda later met farmers in Gudiyakheda village and heard their problems before addressing the media..