Date:08/06/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/06/08/stories/2003060802730700.htm

Other States - Rajasthan

Chautala's offer to Rajasthan

By Our Special Correspondent

The Lok Dal president and Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, addressing a rally in Jodhpur on Saturday.

JAIPUR JUNE 7. After threats of making a Gujarat out of Rajasthan, there is now a promise to make a Haryana out of the State going to the polls some time in November this year.

The offer came from the Haryana Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, while addressing a farmers' rally today in Jodhpur, hometown of the State Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot. Whether the people in Rajasthan would like the idea or not, Mr. Chautala has offered Haryana as a model for this State many times bigger in size and multifarious in its problems.

Mr. Chautala also made the disclosure at the meeting that his ancestors had migrated to Haryana from Rajasthan. Moreover, both States always had the relationship of ``roti-beti'' (sharing of meals and marriage alliances), he asserted.

``If it were not for the late Chaudhary Devi Lal, the Rajasthan Canal would not have been there. The completion of the Siddmukh canal and feeder was possible after his efforts as the Chief Minister of Haryana,'' Mr.Chautala claimed.

Haryana is not Gujarat and the promise from the Indian National Lok Dal(INLD) president, Mr. Chautala, is not on the lines of the religious polarisation witnessed in the last Gujarat Assembly elections.

``The people of Rajasthan also will enjoy the same facilities made available by the INLD Government to the people of Haryana now once the electorate here votes us to power,'' Mr. Chautala said dangling the carrot of good living and fun the people back home reportedly had. Haryana had been sending fodder for the drought- hit cattle in Rajasthan but the State Government here bungled that, he charged.