Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday, 1 September declared that the treatment meted out to Opposition legislators during the Haryana Assembly Monsoon session was unlike anything he had witnessed in his political career. Speaking to the media in Chandigarh a day after the three-day session concluded, Hooda described the episode as a low point for the state's legislative history.

Allegations of Mistreatment on the Assembly Floor

'The authoritarian attitude displayed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, even towards senior MLAs, will be recorded as a dark chapter in the history of the Legislative Assembly,' Hooda said. He alleged that MLAs staging peaceful protests were manhandled, and that no one informed them on whose orders the action was taken. The Leader of Opposition accused the ruling BJP of spending the entire session misleading the House. 'The government failed to provide clear answers to any of the Opposition's questions and appeared to get entangled in its own web of lies,' he added.

The Kaushal Nigam Controversy

Hooda trained his sharpest criticism on the BJP's handling of skill workers employed under the Kaushal Nigam. He alleged that the party had secured the votes of these workers during elections by promising to regularise their employment until retirement — a promise he claimed was now being openly abandoned. He pointed to statements made in the House by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, who, according to Hooda, acknowledged that Kaushal Nigam is 'merely an alternative arrangement' and that workers employed under it 'can be removed from their jobs at any time.' 'The Chief Minister admitted that this is not permanent employment and offers no job security. In effect, the government has itself exposed its own lie to the entire state through the proceedings of the House,' the two-time former Chief Minister said. He described the current plight of skill workers as a limbo: 'They have been reduced to daily wagers. These young skill workers are helpless and are facing repeated exploitation.'

Sanitation Workers and Competing Policy Claims

Hooda also pushed back against what he called a 'massive lie' told by a BJP minister regarding sanitation workers. He alleged the minister falsely claimed that the Congress had only regularised employees with ten or more years of service. Producing what he described as the relevant government notifications, Hooda said the Congress administration had issued two policies — one on 16 June 2014 and another on 18 June 2014 — both of which regularised employees who had completed just three years of service. 'Moreover, these policies were upheld by courts, ranging from the High Court to the Supreme Court. In contrast, the BJP made every effort to remove employees hired under these policies and prevent their regularisation,' he said. He asked why the BJP could not formulate a comparable policy for sanitation workers, alleging that the ruling party's inaction reflected an 'anti-poor, anti-Dalit, and anti-backward class' orientation.

Sanitation Crisis and Congress Demand

Hooda pointed to what he described as a visible fallout from the standoff: garbage accumulation across the state as sanitation workers continue their agitation. He said that during the Congress government's tenure, 11,000 rural and 14,000 urban sanitation workers were appointed, yet the BJP has not regularised them. 'Due to the government ignoring the sanitation workers' demands, piles of garbage have accumulated throughout the state,' he said. Hooda announced that Congress would support any government proposal to regularise these workers in the Legislative Assembly, even from the Opposition benches. 'We demand that a proposal to regularise these employees be introduced in the Legislative Assembly; despite being in the Opposition, we will support it,' he said.

What Comes Next

With a contractual employee movement reportedly spreading across Haryana and the BJP government yet to respond to Hooda's charges, the political standoff over worker regularisation is likely to intensify ahead of the next legislative session. The Congress has signalled it will continue pressing the issue both inside and outside the Assembly.