All three Congress candidates from the Meo Muslim-dominated Nuh district in Haryana – Aftab Ahmed, Mamman Khan and Mohammad Ilyas – on Tuesday (September 10, 2024) filed their nominations for the Assembly polls scheduled for October 5.
Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda accompanied the three leaders and addressed a gathering of their supporters on the occasion.
While the Congress has fielded its sitting MLAs, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has dropped its candidates from the previous Assembly election for Nuh and Punhana, and fielded Minister of State (Environment) Sanjay Singh and Aizaz Khan respectively.
Naseem Ahmed, who had lost to Mamman Khan from Ferozepur Jhirka by over 36,000 votes in 2019, has been fielded again by the BJP.
Former Transport Minister and two-time MLA Aftab Ahmed, addressing a gathering of his supporters before filing the nominations, said it was time for the people to rise above party politics and make decisions keeping in mind the larger interests of this region. He said that people should strengthen his hands for the development of the region.
Mr. Hooda, who joined the public meeting on his way back from Hodal, claimed that the Congress during its ten-year rule carried out a lot of development activities in Nuh, but the BJP did nothing for the development of the area over the past decade. He added that the Congress was returning to power in the State. Mr. Hooda repeated his party’s poll promises of two lakh regular jobs, 300 units of free power, and ₹6,000 old-age pension.
Accused in the Nuh violence case, Mamman Khan and Mohammad Ilyas too filed their nominations from Ferozepur Jhirka and Punhana respectively.
Nuh, one of the most backward districts of Haryana, witnessed communal violence during the Brij Mandal Jalabhishek Yatra by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad last year. Sharing its boundary with the IT hub and Haryana’s financial capital Gurugram, it lacks basic amenities such as drinking and irrigation water and adequate health and education infrastructure.
Demand for railway connectivity, a university, and the widening of the Gurugram-Alwar highway passing through Nuh remain some of the major issues for the area which has also witnessed cases of cow vigilantism over the past decade.
Published - September 10, 2024 11:28 pm IST
