New Delhi: As the government asserts its firm stance on the Land Acquisition Ordinance and the Bill that is set to replace it, government managers have started preparing the groundwork for passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha, where the NDA government is not in a majority.
Defending the Land Acquisition Bill, finance minister Arun Jaitley said while the Opposition was trying to project it as an “anti-farmer” measure, the debate was not between “rich and poor” or “farmers versus non-farmer”, but between “adding to the poverty of India and making India poor for the next two decades”.
The government managers are reaching out to the Opposition parties like Mamata Banerjee’s TMC, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s BSP. Mr Yadav’s invitation to the Prime Minister to his grand-nephew’s “tilak ceremony” and then defending the invitation and praising the Rail Budget were seen as signals that the BJP and SP had worked out some strategy.
