Bring Land Acquisition Amendment Bill in Parliament: BJPKM

Stages day-long dharna in favor of its demand

Raipur, June 15, 2011

The BJP Kisan Morcha (BJPKM) has demanded from the Centre to bring Land Acquisition Amendment Bill in the upcoming monsoon session of the Parliament. In this connection, the BJPKM staged day-long dharna in all the district headquarters on Wednesday. At Raipur, the workers of BJPKM Raipur district and Raipur Rural staged dharna from 12-4 pm and then submitted a memorandum with their 17-point demands to Collector on the name of President Pratibha Patil.

In its memorandum, the BJPKM said the Centre must amend the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 to end exploitation of the farmers. “The land acquisition under the present law was drawing protests from the farmers across the country and it needed to be rectified through an amendment in the existing law,” the BJPKM leaders said.

“The Congress-led UPA government is anti-farmer owing to which it does not want to make amendment in Land Acquisition Act, 1894,” said the morcha’s state president Sandeep Sharma. He said the BJPKM, through its dharna and protest movements, had continuously demanded from the Centre to quickly amend the bill by bringing into Parliament. “If the bill will not be amended in this monsoon session then the morcha will launch aggressive agitation in New Delhi,” he warned.

“The land acquisition should be made for country's security and infrastructure facilities and not for profiteering projects of private companies. The urgency should be specified which must relate to the internal security of the country and its disaster management. Private companies may purchase land on the consensus of farmers. The state governments should not play the role of middlemen,” he said.

The BJP working committee member Mohammad Rustam Bhati said the existing law was not equipped to do justice with farmers as state governments were playing the role of a middleman for the capitalists. “Only the farmers of BJP-ruled states are getting adequate facilities but the condition of farmers in rest of the country is pathetic. So there is urgent need to introduce new amendment bill which would serve as a model Act for the country,” he said.

The state president of BJP’s minority cell Mirza Aijaz Baig said the farmers were committing suicide in large number but the Prime Minister and Union Agriculture Minister were hibernating.

The morcha’s Raipur district president Ramesh Yadu said the UPA government had never intended to benefit farmers. “The Centre has always adopted double standards towards farmers – be it on minimum support price (MSP) or land acquisition matter,” he said.