May 11: Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday refused to succumb to the popular pressure from the khap panchayat demanding legal ban on same gotra (clan or lineage) marriage.
His stand on the issue was contrary to what Kurukshetra MP Naveen Jindal and Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) president Om Prakash Chautala had said on Monday.
The chief minister, who was here to attend a meeting at the Planning Commission to finalise the state plan for the year 2010-11, told reporters that khap is just a societal group and it has no right to take law in its hands.
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We in the government will always appreciate anything which they do to help the society. But such demands and acts which are illegal, my government will never tolerate,” he said.
When asked pointedly to comment about his party colleague and Mr Jindal’s views on the subject and his attending the Khap Mahapanchayat in Kahital in Haryana on Monday, Mr Hooda said, “Individual opinion has no meaning. As you are attributing to him, it could be his personal opinion with which the government has nothing to do.”
Interestingly, however, sources in the plan panel revealed that the CM had to face unpleasant observations made by member Sayeda Hameed.
“She suggested that Haryana has to change its image of being a male dominated society,” the sources added.
Meanwhile, the plan panel on Tuesday approved Rs 18,260 crore-annual-plan for the state. The chief minister is learnt to have promised in the meeting that his government’s top priority is social sector and would like to see qualitative changes in the society.
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‘Khap issue not raised’
New Delhi, May 11: The government on Tuesday said former Haryana chief minister and INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala gave a memorandum to home minister P. Chidambaram on Monday on an incident involving state minister Gopal Kanda and no other issue had figured during the meeting.
The statement by the home ministry comes in the wake of remarks by Mr Chautala after his meeting with Mr Chidambaram that the INLD was opposed to marriage within the same sub-caste and wanted amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act in this regard.
—PTI