In a bid to woo Brahmins ahead of the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls in the State next year, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday promised to appoint a Brahmin Deputy Chief Minister, restore job reservation for the community under Economically Weaker Sections category and set up a “strong” Brahmin Commission if the Congress was voted to power.
In the Jat-dominated politics of Haryana, the Brahmin community, which constitutes around 12% of the State’s population, has been recently trying to politically assert themselves. At an event held a year ago, BJP Rohtak MP Arvind Sharma advocated the need for a Brahmin Chief Minister.
Stressing his family’s four-generation-old relations with the community, Mr. Hooda, at a programme organised by the party’s Badli MLA Kuldeep Vats, said when the Brahmin community held someone’s hand, it supported them till the end. “Today every section of the State understands where Haryana was, and where it has reached now. This pain is in everyone’s heart,” he stated.
Mr. Hooda recalled that the Congress made a Brahmin the Chairperson of the Haryana Public Service Commission, the highest job-providing body in the State, and built its first university in the name of Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma. He added that his party made Kuldeep Sharma, a Brahmin, the Vidhan Sabha Speaker and appointed Vice-Chancellors in universities from the community.
Later, Mr. Hooda, at a press conference in Jind on the occasion of Jan Milan programme, blamed the negative attitude of the present BJP-JJP government for the delay in the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal issue. “The Supreme Court had given a clear verdict in favour of Haryana in February 2017. After this, in July 2020, the Supreme Court gave clear instructions to Punjab, Haryana and Central Government, but the Haryana government kept wasting time by holding inconclusive meetings. Till now the role of BJP and BJP-JJP government has been negative in providing Haryana its rightful share of water,” he stated.
