JOIN USFarm laws repeal has helped Modi's image: Khattar
Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday said that the repeal of three contentious farm laws has helped improve PM Modi’s image.
“If we look at the benefit of the repeal, we can see that PM Modi’s image has only soared,”said Khattar. He was speaking to some women journalists on wide-ranging issues at an event at Delhi’s Haryana Bhawan.
Khattar said that the farm laws will not necessarily affect the Bharatiya Janata Party. “The protests were only in a few states. And, the laws were mooted a decade ago, and there have been discussions in the Parliament on them under the UPA, too. However, it was PM Modi who thought of how these laws can benefit the farmers. Even Opposition leaders agree,” said Khattar. “We could not have let the agitation go on and on, it went on for a whole year.”
Khattar said that his government was looking at compensation for farm protest martyrs, and it will take some time as a list has not been prepared. “The state officials are looking at cases which will be genuine,” he said.
He also said that the government has launched a ‘case wapsi’ drive, under which cases filed against protesting farmers will be taken back. Over 280 such cases have been taken back, he said.
The Khattar government has been reeling after farm protests began. Khattar’s utterances against the farmers have also added to the anger against his government.
Taking on queries on hate crimes, Khattar said that he thought that the incident in Gurugram’s Pataudi where a Hindutva vigilante mob disrupted Christmas Eve gathering was “unfortunate”.
“It was not fair; they have an issue they should inform after or before the programme. They can complain, but the solution is only through dialogue,” Khattar said.
On the Gurugram namaz fiasco, he said that while he’s fine with people praying no community can use that excuse as a show of strength.
“To solve the issue, both sides were reached out to. They reached the conclusion that no force should be used. However, they also said that namaz should remain namaz, it should not become a show of strength. Some organisations do exactly that. Namaz is a matter of personal worship and can be done from home, masjid or eidgah. They should do it with permission of the administration, and it goes for all religions,” Khattar said.
Members of Hindu right wing groups have disrupted namaz at public places in Gurugram, and a petition was filed over the matter in the Supreme Court against Haryana DGP PK Agarwal and state chief secretary Sanjeev Kaushal.
Khattar also said that khaps have been misunderstood. “They come from a time where there was no democratically elected government. The khaps have been derided for all the bad decisions they take, but their positive work is never taken up. True that they should be held responsible for female infanticide, but they have done the most for the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme,” he said.
Haryana’s sex ratio has increased 50 points to 893 as per the NFHS-5 survey. “We aim to reach 950 points in the next two years,” Khattar said.
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