Pehowa :
Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Sunday said he would not be cowed down by a case registered against him allegedly at the behest of the BJP government.

Rolling out the sixth edition of his “Jan Kranti Yatra” from the Sikh-dominated Assembly segment of Pehowa, Hooda alleged he was being implicated in a frivolous case.

This was his first public address after an FIR was registered against him and Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, in connection with Gurugram land deals.

“In the previous phases of the yatra, I sensed a popular public mood against the BJP. The state government is upset over the thumping response the Congress is getting. So, the BJP is implicating me. But I am not worried,” Hooda said.

At a well-attended public meeting organised by Hooda loyalist and former Finance Minister HS Chatha, the former Chief Minister said people had made their mind to oust the BJP from power in the next year’s Assembly elections.

He alleged the BJP had failed to keep its pre-poll promises, including implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report and disbursal of unemployment allowance.

“If voted to power, the Congress will waive loans of farmers and implement Swaminathan Commission’s key recommendation to fix minimum support price (MSP) for farm produce based on a comprehensive measure of cultivation costs that includes the imputed cost of capital and the rent on the land,” he said.

Hooda added the Congress would fix pay scales of government employees higher than their Punjab counterparts.