In Nuh, list of unfinished welfare projects is long

The old war horses are set for another battle in this Assembly segment where the election is set to be a face-off between the Indian National Lok Dal-turned-Bharatiya Janata Party leader Zakir Hussain and Congress leader and former minister Aftab Ahmed even as the INLD after its split seems to live on in rural pockets.

Named after Hazrat Nuh, a prophet, this constituency of minorities can’t help lamenting the step-motherly treatment meted out by the BJP government in the last five years and can go on and on about a string of unkept promises.

They claim that education is at an all-time low in schools practically “deserted” by teachers since the BJP opened the Mewat cadre and allowed transfers out of the district, drinking water is in short supply, employment is at its lowest ebb since drivers are unable to renew licences and the local hospital has becoming a referral unit.

“We want separate girls’ schools in Nuh but the government does not hear us. We hardly get power and the drinking water supply does not meet our requirement. Our students are in need of a university but the closest one is in Gurugram. Nobody comes visiting once the elections are over and things have only deteriorated under the BJP rule,” says Shabir of Malab village.

In Khedla, Sadiqque rues the state of affairs, claiming that all they got under the BJP was the fear of lynching; the cow trade has come to a naught and villagers live in fear of being targeted. “The political representatives also only show up around election time and we are left to our fate for the rest of the period. Some projects came during the Congress rule but most of them have not fructified into anything substantial,” claims Fakruddin. 

Represented by Hussain, who was elected on an INLD ticket, Nuh doesn’t show any signs of having climbed up from its backward status if its sanitation is also anything to go by. Hussain who quit the INLD and resigned from his seat, has become a BJP man.

He says he has ushered in change and Nuh has improved in the last five years though a lot still remains to be done. “We brought water for irrigation through drains. We are getting water for Nuh town and 19 villages from a pipeline that comes from Badli,” he said. 

Ahmed, however, counters him by claiming that all projects the Congress started have either been stalled or discarded. “The government hospital is crying for doctors, schools have been without teachers, and not one brick has been laid for the Industrial Model Township,”he says.

While the two rivals slug it out, a villager sitting in a group outside Nuh says, “The BJP has no place here after the lynching of Pehlu Khan and Rakbar Khan.”