Haryana Assembly: Opposition seeks relief, govt jobs to kin of farmers

Opposition Haryana MLAs on Friday in the state Assembly demanded compensation and government jobs for relatives of the farmers who died during the course of the agitation against the Centre's farm laws.

The laws were recently repealed, after which farmers suspended their year-long protest at Delhi borders.

The opposition legislators raised the matter during the Zero Hour on the opening day of Haryana Assembly's winter session here.

Former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who is the Leader of Opposition, and another senior Congress MLA, Kiran Choudhary, wanted that a resolution to be passed through which the Centre is urged to give legal guarantee of the MSP on crops.

Senior Indian National Lok Dal leader Abhay Singh Chautala said more than 700 farmers died during the course of the agitation against the farm laws.

He demanded compensation to the next of kin of those farmers who died and a government job to one of the family members.

A suitable memorial should also be built in memory of those farmers who had died and they should be given the status of martyr, INLD leader said, demanding that the government should immediately withdraw all cases registered against them during the course of their stir.

Abhay, who is the lone MLA of his party, while pointing towards the treasury benches, wanted that resolution of last year in which the government had thanked the Centre for the three farm laws be withdrawn since these laws had now been repealed.

Later, talking to reporters, Abhay said that Chief Minister M L Khattar should apologise as the government had earlier brought a resolution to thank the Centre for the three farm laws and repeatedly maintained that laws would benefit them.

The Congress MLAs, including Hooda and Choudhary, also raised the demand of compensation and government job to the next of kin.

Talking to reporters after the day's proceedings, Hooda said the government is running away from discussion on many issues and this is evident from the manner in which many calling attention notices on issues of vital public importance given by Congress MLAs have been rejected.

"The government should know that Congress MLAs have come to the session with full preparation and they will force the ruling benches to respond on issues concerning people," he said.

Earlier in the day before the start of the Assembly session, a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party was held under the chairmanship of Hooda, in which issues to be raised in the House were discussed.

These included the alleged HPSC recruitment scam, shortage of fertilisers, law and order situation, government interference in university recruitment, unemployment, bad condition of roads and inflation.

Hooda said, "The youth of the state is facing record unemployment while recruitment scams are happening. There is a demand from the opposition to get the entire matter investigated under the supervision of a sitting judge of the High Court, but the government is running away from it."

Meanwhile, shortly before the start of the day's proceedings, Haryana Youth Congress activists led by state unit chief Divyanshu Budhiraja held a protest about one km away from the state assembly, alleging that the government is trying to hush up the "scam" in the recruitment of dental surgeons.

The state government recently sacked deputy secretary of Haryana Public Service Commission Anil Nagar, who was arrested recently for allegedly taking bribes to manipulate marks of candidates for their recruitment.

It is clear from this that the role of the government itself is questionable. Only the deputy secretary of the HPSC cannot execute such a huge recruitment scam, Budhiraja said.