Hyderabad: Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Friday that the Congress, along with other like-minded Opposition parties, would stall the Land Acquisition amendment Bill being brought by NDA in “whatever form”.
Speaking to the media at Indira Bhavan here, the former Union minister and MP said that the Opposition parties had “in principle” decided not to compromise on the Land Acquisition Act – that had been brought by UPA-2 in 2013 – being diluted by the NDA government, “which is trying to bring about amendments to help corporate giants and do away with the protections given to farmers”.
Mr Ramesh said that the Congress could not accept any amendments to the mandatory provision of 80 per cent consent by farmers for acquiring their lands and also on the provision making it mandatory that no farmlands where multiple crops are raised be acquired.
“We have taken enough care to protect farmers’ interests in land acquisitions, we will continue to resist the move by NDA which is somehow determined to dilute the key provisions; we are equally determined to oppose the amendments,” he said.
He added that it would be interesting to see what stand the TD and TRS, the ruling parties in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, take when the NDA introduces the amendments to the Land Acquisition Bill after April 20 in Parliament. “Whether they will stand for poor farmers or not will be known to everyone,” he said.
Alleging that AP Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu were ignoring the basic issues enshrined in the AP Reorganisation Act brought by UPA-2, Mr Ramesh said that if the AP CM wanted to get the Pattiseema project cleared expeditiously, it would automatically amount to ignoring the early completion of the Polavaram Dam, the life-line of AP.
He also criticised Mr Venkaiah Naidu for backing out on granting special status to AP as promised by the then Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in Rajya Sabha last year.
