Land acquisition ordinance: Bharatiya Kisan Sangh to hit street

NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitely may have made conciliatory trips to Kolkata and Chennai to shore up support for the ordinances to be tabled in Parliament in the budget session, but it has left the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), the farmers’ wing of the Sangh Parivar, unimpressed.

The outfit has decided to take its agitation against the proposed amendments (cleared as an ordinance by the Union Cabinet last month) to the Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, to the streets if its appeal to MPs to vote against the ordinance is not heeded.

BKS president Prabhakar Kelkar spoke to ET and revealed the organisation was in touch with MPs across party lines to block the passage of the ordinance. “The ordinance will come up for voting during the budget session. We intend to block its passage in two ways. The first is to meet MPs and explain our objections to the amendments.

If it does not work, we intend to hit the streets in protest.” He added BKS had already touched base with at least 250 MPs and “none of them said that they agreed with the changes”. “We want to make a Kisan lobby in Parliament. The changes in the Act should be debated. If a debate takes place, then that would be enough to convince Parliament that the ordinance is bad for farmers,” he said. He denied he would be asking MPs to “vote from conscience”.

“We won’t ask parties to defy the whip. BKS follows its own agenda and is not bound to follow the diktats of any party.” he said.