Chandigarh: Hailing BJP's victory in the Haryana polls as "historic", many winning candidates of the party Friday said now the thrust will be to accelerate development in the third term and take the state to new heights. BJP's firebrand leader Anil Vij, who has been elected as MLA for seventh time, told PTI he has already started his work by taking stock of the ongoing projects in his Ambala Cantt constituency.
Mahipal Dhanda, minister in the outgoing Nayab Singh Saini cabinet who retained his Panipat Rural seat, said BJP's win in October 5 polls for the third time in a row is "historic". The results may have left the opposition stunned, but the BJP knew the pulse of the people who wanted to bring back the party to power, Dhanda said.
People put their stamp of approval in the policies and programmes of the BJP governments both at the Centre and in Haryana, Dhanda told PTI. He said after the new government in the state is sworn in, the thrust will be to "further accelerate the pace of development and take Haryana to new heights".
Haryana will be at the forefront to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a 'Viksit Bharat', the BJP MLA said. "Whichever policies are needed to achieve this, we will bring them. The thrust will be to accelerate development in various spheres including, in the industrial front, generating more avenues of employment while at the same time ensuring that key needs of people are taken care of," he said.
Dhanda added, "Good health, education, and roads will continue to be on our focus and as in the past, every job will be given purely on merit basis," he said. Steps to boost tourism in the state will also be taken, he added. According to the Haryana Assembly election results declared Tuesday, the BJP ended up with its best-ever haul of 48 seats, 11 more than the Congress. The JJP and the AAP were decimated and the INLD managed to win just two seats.
Vij said all along he had been maintaining that the BJP will form the government on its own for third term. He said the Congress was upbeat as exit polls had predicted its comfortable victory but began blaming the EVMs once results were out. Vij said even on the day when early trends put the opposition party ahead, "the Congress were doing 'bhangra' in the morning and many of its leaders went on record to point that they had been saying the party will form government".
"But when it became clear to them that the Congress was losing, they started to blame the EVMs," he added. Harvinder Kalyan, who retained his seat from Gharaunda in Karnal district, said the BJP-led government's policies have brought a change in the lives of people who put their stamp of approval in the assembly elections.
"Common people have realised the difference that what the BJP says, it delivers. The benefits of various schemes, including for farmers, have percolated down," he told PTI. "We brought transparency in the system. Merit was promoted, all these things have touched people either directly or indirectly," Kalyan added.
The BJP leader said while a lot has been done, a lot still remains to be done, which the new government will try to achieve in its upcoming term while fulfilling the promises made to the people. Meanwhile, Mahipal Dhanda also said, "The Congress leaders and workers started their celebrations early going by the exit polls and many were seen jumping before reality dawned upon them that they were losing".
"During elections, I extensively worked on the ground and one thing I clearly saw was a BJP wave. I met several people, including old women and farmers, who said they were thankful to Modi ji as they were getting benefit of various schemes," he said. Dhanda said he many youths who were afraid that if the Congress won the elections, the same old days of "parchi and kharchi" would be back and favouritism and corruption would flourish once again.
"There was a 'silent kranti' happening on the ground and the BJP was emerging stronger, which the opposition parties failed to see," he said.
