Mamata, Pranab to meet over land acquisition bill

NEW DELHI: If the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's (NAC) recommendation — to involve the government for 100% acquisition of land — is accepted by the Centre to formulate its Land Acquisition Bill, the UPA could face an opposition from its biggest ally Trinamool Congress. However, West Bengal chief minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee is confident that her party's stand is clearly known to the PM and the Centre will take care to keep her concerns in mind while finalizing the bill.

On Sunday, Mamata is scheduled to hold a meeting with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, who will be in Kolkata for the weekend. It is likely that the land bill issue will come up for a discussion in the meeting.

Even as she has become chief minister of West Bengal, Mamata says her party has been totally against government playing a role in "acquiring land from individual landowners without their consent" and the TMC election manifesto also mentions it. Though Mamata is not against the state acquiring land, her main concern is that if government has 100% role in acquring land, then "consent of the landowner could even be ignored." "Today I am in government and even I am not asking for this power," the chief minister said.