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This is an archive article published on August 26, 2019

Taking stock: Hits and misses for Panchkula MLA Gian Chand Gupta

It was five years ago that Gupta swept to power in this largely urban constituency. As his term draws to a close, Pallavi Singhal looks at his performance in the past five years.

mla gian chand gupta, chandigarh news, chandigarh city, india news, mla gian chand gupta, chandigarh news, chandigarh development, india news Gian Chand Gupta, Panchkula MLA. (File)

Gian Chand Gupta, 71, wears a contented smile as he looks back at the last five years. Once the president of the Chandigarh BJP, Gupta has come a long way from his days as an RSS volunteer when he was at school in Dera Bassi.

His initial foray into Haryana politics wasn’t

fruitful. Gupta lost his maiden election from Panchkula in 2009 with a huge margin. But his persistence paid off and Gupta returned a winner in 2014 with a handsome margin of 44,602 votes. Now with the state inching towards the next assembly elections, Gupta looks, like a man at peace.

”I have accomplished a lot,” he waves a sheaf of papers listing his “works”. But what Gupta is most proud of is the four-laning of Panchkula-Yamunanagar highway. ”The project had been languishing for 15 years till I got it completed,” he says, claiming the BJP government had spent over Rs 2000 crore on development projects in the constituency in these five years.

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Gupta is also very proud of the swanky Rs 28-crore PWD guesthouse, where chief minister ML Khattar often takes a break. ”Earlier, we had no place where we could host a dignitary,” says Gupta.

In 2014, Gupta had promised to make the city an education hub. He claims he has fulfilled this promise. “As promised, I gave the city an AIIMS under the Ministry of AYUSH with an investment of Rs 500 crore. Tenders worth 278.66 crores have already been passed for the building spread over 20 acres. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself laid its foundation stone.”

He also takes credit for NIFT, which was announced recently with an investment of Rs 1500 crore. “Once completed, it will attract students from around the State.” Another feather in his cap, he says, is the multi-purpose, indoor sports complex, which will not only host major sports events but also provide best-in-class facilities to budding players. Gupta also takes pride in having upgraded the Sector 6 civil hospital, from a 100-bedded to a 300-bed hospital with hi-tech machines such as an MRI, CT scan, dialysis units and a cath lab et al.

Residents have a long list of grouses

While Gupta may be happy with his progress, his constituents have a different take. While they appreciate the highway and the multi-purpose indoor sports complex, they don’t think the PWD guest house helps the citizens in any way. ”Its tariffs are akin to those charged by hotels. It is of service only to MLAs and politicians,” says Dharam Singh Hera and Sunil Jain.

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Talking about the developments on the educational and medicinal front, Vijay Gupta and Amrit Lal Sharma fume that NIFT stands near a dumping ground. ”No youngster would like taking admission there, and even if she does, consider the hazards of living so close to a dumping site.”

Residents further say that they were promised a full-fledged medical institution but instead, they have been short-changed with an Ayurvedic AIIMS. ”This is plain rhetoric about promoting the traditional Indian medical knowledge without caring about the inefficacy of such an institute.”

Grumbling about the inadequate health services in the constituency, people claimed that due to the absence of a medical college in the city, they have to frequent the PGIMER, GMSH or GMCH for treatment. ”The Civil Hospital, even with all the additional services, proves to be of little help when every critical case, sometimes even a patient with a fracture is referred to Chandigarh hospitals,” groused Mahesh Kumar Kalra.

CM Manohar Lal Khattar, in his 2014 manifesto, had promised that the BJP government would set up a university at either Panchkula or Ambala, but no such work has begun yet.

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Locals demand that the town deserves a world-class university and not just any university.

P S Sangha, a resident of Sector 2, says, “Children change schools after Class 10 to avail the Panjab University quota. Even though the MLA had promised to build an educational hub, he could not bring even one university here. NIFT can never be enough to make the city an education hub.”

People demand that Panchkula should be developed on the lines of the development that took place in Gurgaon, which is part of the NCR region.

The low points

Panchkula entry gate
The recently built Panchkula gate that led to traffic snarls and jams for around two weeks has failed to gather any fans in the city. Standing petite at the Sector 18-7 dividing road of Panchkula, most people say it has no relevance as the city is not a tourist destination. While some point out that even Chandigarh doesn’t have one, others compare it to the entry gates of cities like Amritsar, saying the least they could have done is to make it a little better. For now, it is just an uplifting arc of a bow. Allegations of corruption have also been in the Panchkula entry gate have also been doing rounds in the city.

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Dumping ground
Just like the previous governments, the current government too failed to shift the dumping ground from —–. The promise of setting up a solid waste management plant is also yet to be fulfilled as the company which was handed over the project abandoned it even before beginning work. Meanwhile, the alternative site at Jheuriwala village has also come under fire from residents of Sectors 25 and 32.

Ghat at Ghaggar
A ghat has been built near Sector 21, keeping in mind the religious feelings of the migrants hailing from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with an investment of 1.92 crores. Residents consider it a huge waste of money saying it was not needed at all. They allege that this is only a vote-bank increasing tactic. The Ghaggar, they say, runs dry all year, how can the building be a ghat if it has no river water flowing. Also, they contend that if ever, the bridge has to be widened, the whole building will have to be pulled down, noted Col SK Datta, Balwan Singh, Sunil Jain and S K Nayyar.

Violence during Dera chief’s Rahim’s arrest

Terming Aug 25, 2017, as a black-letter day in the history of the city, residents fume that they witnessed complete administration failure when followers of the Dera Sacha Sauda chief ran amok after his conviction. The army had to be called out to stem the violence that followed and 31 persons lost their lives while 250 were injured. Residents say they were held hostage in their own homes and had to make their own security arrangements.

The mayoral row

The animosity between MLA Gian Chand Gupta and the first women mayor of Panchkula Upinder Kaur Ahluwalia was an open secret. The two freely traded insults and accused the other of hampering MC work.
While Gupta alleges that no developmental work could be carried out till the time the mayor was in a chair, Ahluwalia, a member of Congress party, claims to have completed a number of development projects in the city despite the hurdles created by the MLA.

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While many attribute the bad blood to party rivalry, both claim it was due to the inefficiency of the other in getting work done.

Gupta says, “Her attitude towards MC officers was very negative. She did nothing but wrote letters to various departments. In a house meeting, she herself said she had written 3,000 letters to officers during her tenure.” The Mla claimed that he had no personal issues with her but was irked by the hindrances she created in developmental works. ”It has been a smooth ride since she left and look, how much work has been done,” he quipped.

Meanwhile, Ahluwalia says, “It is for everybody to see what all I did during my tenure and what is being done without me. The only problem between us was the fact I did not misuse or let anybody else misuse public money. People pay so much tax from their hard-earned money and it should only be used for their betterment and not to fill up people’s pockets,” she said. Ahluwalia claimed that while she allowed only 1200 rehris during her tenure, the number has significantly increased ever since.

Unemployment on rise

In conversation with the MLA, while he talked on about his many accomplishments, we shared a moment of silence when the question of creating employment opportunities in the city was put up. He said he had tried his best to generate employment by bringing an Industrial area in town which has not exactly taken off. He then went on to say that the Haryana government had created 70,000 jobs in the tenure, though, he stammered when asked about Panchkula.

From the opposition

Anjali Bansal, Mahila Congress

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” Gian Chand has failed to solve the problems of the people. The problem of stray livestock in the city has seen a rise during his tenure with at least 20 cases of dog bite a day. A budget for cow-sheds and dog rehabilitation centres was passed but nothing has come out of it. The dumping ground remains an issue. The hopes of Panchkula to get a University and a medical college lie dashed to the ground. ”

Manoj Aggarwal, JJP

“The law and order in the city have deteriorated. Illegal mining has seen growth during his tenure and many officials of his party have been accused of being involved but he has paid no heed. The whole city suffers from the problem of encroachment with various sectors seeing huge traffic jams but officers who took action against it have been transferred instead of being rewarded. In fact, work on ISBT near the Majri Chowk lies is suspended due to encroachments. While the MLA talks of making the city an educational hub, nothing has been

From kabaddi to politics

Gian Chand Gupta, who hails from Dera Bassi, was born on May 25, 1948. He was almost 14 years old when he joined RSS and started working with them. He says he was motivated by his uncles, who were freedom fighters, to work for the people. But it was his interest in kabaddi that got him in touch with the Sangh and he joined it.

Gupta says he faced many hardships during his education due to the financial condition of his family. “I was 20 when I had to drop out of a three-year engineering diploma degree to join my family business… After this, I could never get back to his studies.”

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He took care of various responsibilities assigned to him during his time at RSS till 1980, after which he stepped into the world of politics. His political career started from Chandigarh, where he was appointed the president of the BJP state unit. He then stepped into various roles, remaining loyal to BJP throughout as vice-president, Haryana BJP, treasurer and Mayor of Chandigarh municipal corporation.

He contested his first assembly election in 2009 from Panchkula but lost. In the very next election, he recovered and won the seat with a thumping margin.The MLA has retained his interest in kabbadi and organises annual matches every year This year’s match is currently being held at Barwala.

A big fan of Manoj Kumar and Amitabh Bacchan, his favourite movie remains ‘Baaghban’.

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