Former chief minister and leader of the Opposition, Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Saturday said that the Congress’s ‘Save Vote, Save the Nation’ campaign is receiving overwhelming support across Haryana.
“The public has become highly vigilant following the exposure of the BJP’s ‘vote theft.’ In the 2029 elections, the people will not allow the BJP or the Election Commission to engage in any vote theft,” Hooda told the reporters in Rohtak.
On this occasion, he remarked that the BJP government’s decision to increase the sugarcane procurement price by a mere ₹15 as a cruel joke on the farmers. “The government has raised the price by only 3%, even as inflation continues to skyrocket,” he added.
Hooda pointed out that during the Congress government’s nine-and-a-half-year tenure (2005–2014), there was a historic increase in sugarcane prices.
“At that time, the price was raised from ₹117 per quintal to ₹310 per quintal, an increase of ₹193, or 165%. This translates to an average annual increase of approximately 18.3% during that period,” he pointed out.
“In contrast, over the 12 years of the BJP government, the sugarcane price has increased by only ₹120, from ₹310 to ₹430 per quintal, representing a total hike of just 39%. This amounts to an average annual increase of only about 3.25%. In other words, the Congress party’s increase was six times greater than that of the BJP,” he said.