The former CM claiming 38,000 posts of teachers are lying vacant. On one side young children are being forced to go on a hunger strike over the appointment of teachers in their schools, on the other the youth, who have cleared Haryana Teacher Eligibility Test (HTET), are forced to move from door to door demanding recruitment.

“But the government is neither ready to listen to them nor recruit teachers. There are no teachers in the schools and there are no doctors in hospitals. There are 10,000 vacant posts in the health department but the government does not want to give employment to the youth. This is the reason why the state is facing 26.9 per cent unemployment according to a CMIE data. Haryana’s unemployment rate is 37 per cent higher than the national average, according to the NITI Aayog data,” he claimed.

Hooda also took a swipe at the ruling party over an incident in Karnal where a ration depot holder was allegedly found forcing the poor to mandatorily buy the national flag to get their ration.

“Forcibly selling flags for Rs 20 to the poor through depot holders is absolutely condemnable,” he stated.

On the government move to change mutation of Shamlat lands, Hooda said, “Government should file a review petition in the Supreme Court at the earliest or the Consolidation Act should be amended, because it is wrong to evict the families settled for years. If the government does not take steps in time, it would lead to a challenging situation”.

Claiming that the government was negligent in dealing with the waterlogging problem, he demanded compensation for farmers who suffered crop damage.

He also took a dig at the relationship between the BJP and the JJP, saying it was an alliance for “narrow selfish interests, and not driven by any development agenda”.

“Instead of public welfare and service, those in power are engaged in serving themselves. This is the reason why corruption is at its peak in the state today. People of the state are looking towards the Congress as an alternative. The coming government in the state will be of the Congress because every section of the state is unhappy with the coalition government and believe they have come to power by deception,” he said.

On Agnipath scheme

Reiterating that the Aginpath scheme is neither in the interest of the youth nor the country, Hooda said the strength of the Army has already come down from 14 to 12 lakh due to non-recruitment during the pandemic and this will further reduce by half in the coming few years.

“Lakhs of youth are queuing up to become Agniveers, but the government should not consider it as a support to the scheme. They are queuing up because unemployment is at its peak in the country and in Haryana. The youth will queue up even if the government came out with a job scheme for only four months, instead of four years,” he added.

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Leaders’ names removed from books

Congress MLAs Aftab Ahmed and Geeta Bhukkal Thursday accused the government of removing names of renowned personalities from text books. “BJP government has removed the biography of Maharaja Agrasen from Chapter 11 of the Hindi book of Class V of Haryana Elementary Education Department’s syllabus. Also the biography of Chaudhary Chhotu Ram, Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma, Chaudhary Ranbir Singh, Chaudhary Devi Lal, Rao Birender Singh, Chaudhary Bansi Lal, Pandit Lakhmi Chand and Major Hoshiyar Singh have been removed from the Chapter 14 ‘Pride of Haryana’. BJP has showed its narrow thinking by removing the mention of the great men of the state . On the occasion of Independence Day, the government should seek forgiveness and include their names again in the curriculum,” Bhukkal said.