Hooda dares Khattar to settle revenges once and for all

Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who has been booked by the state's Vigilance Department for his alleged involvement in the National Herald case, on Monday asked the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government to stop indulging in the politics of vendetta and instead focus on fulfilling the promises made to the people.

Hooda told the media here that the BJP Government in Haryana should concentrate on fulfilling the promises which it made during the assembly elections rather than wasting time on targeting people.

"This government has only two goals: one to work with vindictive sentiments and second to keep transferring and changing the posts of government officers. We get a list almost every day. I would like to tell the government that if you want to take revenge then take revenge once and for all, but don't come up with new issues every now and then," said Hooda.

"The BJP Government should concentrate on fulfilling the tall promises, which it made at the time of elections rather than targeting leaders," he added.

Hooda called the BJP the protagonist behind the riots, which rattled Haryana during the Jat reservation agitation.

"The BJP is responsible for the riots, which broke out in Haryana two months back. They even denied our demand of a Supreme Court-monitored probe. If you are not guilty then why hesitate in doing so," Hooda said.

Hooda, who as the chief minister was the ex-officio chairman of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), has been accused of illegally transferring land to Associated Journals Ltd., which published the newspaper at Panchkula in 2005.

The Congress leader has been charged with cheating and breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code and also criminal misconduct under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy had earlier accused Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying just Rs. 50 lakh by which Young Indian (YI) obtained the rights to recover Rs. 90.25 crore which the Associated Journals Ltd. had owed to the Congress Party.

Swamy had alleged that over Rs. 2,000 crore worth of assets also got transferred to YI, whose 76 percent of shareholding is with the Gandhis while the remaining 24 percent shareholding is with the other accused.