The amendments made in undue haste to dilute the land law by the “Ordinance Government”, led by Mr Narendra Modi, are anti-farmer, unjust and pro-corporate. “The UPA Government had brought such a good, comprehensive and pro-farmer bill, but the NDA has diluted it just to benefit the chosen few”, Ms Kiran Choudhary,Leader of the Haryana Congress Legislature Party (CLP), said in a statement issued here today.
She lambasted the NDA Government for taking the ordinance route and circumventing the parliamentary procedure of bringing the bills toboth Houses and then getting them approved. “What was the tearing hurry to bring the ordinance? Is it just because the NDA fear that the changes may not stand the scrutiny of law,” she asked. The dilution opens the doors for forcible and excess acquisition as well as persion of land owned by farmers, she added.
Ms Choudhry said that removal of the consent clause made land acquisition easier and mandatory for the farmers to part with their lands under the PPP mode. “It is totally unjust, ant-farmer and adds insult to injury of the farmers who are suffering. In fact, the changes comes as a double whammy for the farmers who have already been deceived by the Central Government by not implementing the Swaminathan Commission report”, the former Excise and Taxation Minister added.In the agrarian state like Haryana, the diluted law will deliver a body blow to the farmers who have been placed at the mercy of the BJP Government. “They will have to part with their valuable lands for the meager compensation as and when the government wants to benefit its near and dear ones under the so-called PPP mode”, she said, asking if it was the New Year gift that the government was giving to the farmers?