'Govt in great hurry to snatch land from poor'

NEW DELHI: At Tuesday's joint parliamentary committee meeting for the land bill, former RSS and BJP ideologue K N Govindacharya, armed with RSS and BJP constitutions and manifestos and references to Deen Dayal Upadhyay , hit out at the Centre against provisions of the present land bill, saying that since independence, the present government has shown the greatest hurry in snatching away land from people to give it away to corporates, when the party's promise was to distribute land to the poor.

Govindacharya and Anna Hazare's Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Andolan Nyas joined other NGOs, farmer bodies on Tuesday alleging that land bill changes will “damage“ farmers and negatively impact food grain production. He said promulgating an ordinance thrice on a matter was enough to signal that.

Govindacharya made 15 demands like steps to ensure no land was acquired without the written consent of gram sabha, setting up of constitutional commissions at the Centre and the states to carry out social impact assessment, fixing responsibility of government officials in land acquisition and provisions for strict punishment to them for irregularities and land to farmers in case of land acquisition.

Fearing there could be a “scam" in the name of land acquisition for industrial corridor, he demanded a clear definition for it and clarity on how much of industrial corridors will be set up in the country.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said in California that the Centre could consider calling a joint session of Parliament if the Rajya Sabha stalled the land acquisition bill. He said they are still hopeful about not having to reach that situation, and if it had to, it had the numbers as per the constitutional mechanism.

Though, he stopped short of giving a timeline for the joint session. However, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury said the opposition would not allow the bill to be either passed or defeated, so that the government cannot convene a joint session to get the bill through.