NEW DELHI: A day after 31 persons were killed in Sirsa and Panchkula in Haryana, the Opposition demanded the sacking of Haryana chief minister M L Khattar saying he failed to gauge the situation and control it in time. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “This is an inefficient, incompetent, ineffective state government. It should have been removed a while ago. It must be removed immediately under President’s rule.”
Singhvi cited two older incidents to point out how the Khattar government had failed to effectively deal with similar law and order challenges. In November 2014, supporters of godman Rampal had clashed with the police and in February 2016, the Jat quota agitation had turned violent, he said. The Congress said its government in neighbouring Punjab under chief minister Amarinder Singh had anticipated the problem and was better prepared to deal with Dera followers in the state.
The CPI-M, noting that the violence over the conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was the third instance of law and order failure in Haryana, said, “The chief minister cannot remain in office…he must be immediately sacked.”
The party, in a statement, said, “Earlier it was reported that the chief minister and the BJP MLAs had visited this godman to seek his blessings. This reflects the sympathetic manner in which the BJP sought to deal with the situation.”
In Lucknow, BSP chief Mayawati also slammed the Khattar government terming the administration’s poor handling of the protesting Dera supporters who went on a rampage as a “shameful surrender” to vote-bank politics.