Hooda rolls out welfare schemes at rally

GOHANA (Haryana): Almost two months after BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi kicked off his party's campaign at Rewari with a well-attended rally, Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday came up with his riposte, pulling in nearly two lakh people to his political stronghold in Sonipat.

Hooda claimed this was the biggest rally in the state's history while taking aim at several targets - from sending a message to the central leadership that he has greater acceptability among the state brass and his detractors have little space to the announcement of a series of welfare schemes to woo voters. "We have broken all records of political rallies in the country. I am close to 67 years old. I had never seen such a big rally in my life," Hooda said. Modi had made a similar observation at his Rewari rally.

With almost all state leaders on his side barring detractors like Union minister Kumari Selja, Rajya Sabha MP Chaudhry Birender Singh and Gurgaon MP Rao Inderjit Singh, Hooda said, "There are obstacles within and outside. We will deal with them if you (read voters) stay with us." Sending signals of how he is on the same page with the central leadership and particularly Rahul Gandhi, Hooda said 50% of tickets should go to the youth in the next elections.

Hooda went all out to announce welfare schemes for all sections including enhancement of social security pensions, increasing minimum wages of workers to Rs 8,100 a month, introducing a free medical treatment scheme and increasing the interim pay of police personnel and class III and IV employees. However, Hooda did not mention the additional fiscal burden because of his new announcements.

With an eye on elections, he promised to fill around 80,000 government vacancies including 15,000 meant for Scheduled Castes and backward castes in the next one year.

Hooda announced to increase pension to the old, widows and handicapped to Rs 1,000 per month. For farmers, he claimed that the government will provide Rs 5 lakh financial assistance to the wife and dependent children of a farmer or farm labourer in the event of his demise. In case of injuries and disability, farmers would get between Rs 30,000 and Rs 2 lakh as compensation.

The CM also announced free supply of 600 types of medicines to at least 1.75 crore people in the state with an allocation of Rs 300 crore.