Congress calls BJP’s Haryana anniversary a ‘celebration of failures’

As the BJP marked one year of its third consecutive term in Haryana with fanfare and speeches, the Congress struck a sharply contrasting note — calling the Nayab Singh Saini-led government’s anniversary a “celebration of failures”.

Leader of the Opposition and former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda accused the government of betraying every section of society — from farmers to youth, and from employees to businessmen — saying the year had brought “misery, not milestones”.

“The list of this government’s failures is so long that instead of celebrating, it should be introspecting,” Hooda remarked caustically.

He painted a bleak picture of Haryana’s agrarian distress, alleging that farmers are running from pillar to post in grain markets as state agencies refuse to procure paddy on flimsy grounds — citing moisture and discolouration. Hooda reminded that the BJP had promised Rs 3,100 per quintal for paddy and assured procurement of all crops at MSP during the last Assembly election, but “today the reality is the opposite”.

“Farmers are not getting MSP, fertilisers, or even timely compensation. The government has failed them on every front,” he said.

Turning to law and order, Hooda alleged that crime has surged across Haryana while the police “stand helpless”. He cited the alleged suicides of IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar and ASI Sandeep Kumar as “grim reflections of the stress and insensitivity within the system”.

“When farmers, youth, and workers are all in distress and corruption and unemployment are rampant, this government’s celebration becomes a cruel joke on the people,” Hooda declared.

He also dismissed the BJP’s oft-repeated “double-engine government” claim as hollow rhetoric. “Haryana has neither received any major project from the Centre nor has the state government executed any significant development initiative,” he said.

Adding his own sting, Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala described the first year of Nayab Saini’s rule as “nothing short of a disaster”.

“Farmers are devastated, Dalits are being suppressed, youth are frustrated, and law and order lies in tatters,” he charged.

Surjewala alleged that criminal gangs now dominate Haryana’s landscape, from Yamunanagar to Nuh, from Panchkula to Sirsa. “Daily incidents of open firing, ransom threats, and gangster videos flood social media — the government has surrendered before organised crime,” he said.

He further accused the regime of allowing the plunder of the state’s natural wealth — its sand, minerals, forests, and water. “In Nuh, mining mafias have destroyed hills worth over Rs 2,200 crore using explosives. In Sonipat, illegal miners even diverted the Yamuna’s course, endangering lives and ecology,” Surjewala alleged.

Painting a darker social picture, he said Haryana had “slipped into the grip of drugs” under BJP rule.

“This has become ‘Udta Haryana’ — a state gasping under addiction and apathy,” he said.

Concluding his broadside, Surjewala accused the government of tearing at the state’s social fabric.

“Deliberate attempts are being made to divide communities and destroy the unity that defines Haryana. From the corridors of power to the village chaupals, the politics of hate has replaced the spirit of harmony,” he warned, calling it “a dangerous game with the state’s future”.

With PTI inputs