Land Acquisition Bill: No link between farmer suicide case, says Venkaiah Naidu

New Delhi: Union Minister, M, Venkaiah Naidu, asked the Opposition not to link the unfortunate incident involving farmer Gajendra Singh’s suicide with the issue of land acquisition bill amendment.

Referring to the case of Gajendra, who allegedly committed suicide at Jantar Mantar during an AAP rally, he said, "Some people tried to politicise the issue. It was an unfortunate incident. But that has nothing to do with land acquisition as that was for different reasons.

Asking the Opposition not to divert attention of people from real issues, Naidu said, "More than 2 lakh farmers committed suicide in the last decade. At that time who was running the country? So, don't try to politicise every issue.”

Terming the criticism of the NDA government over land bill as "unnecessary", he said large chunk of land was acquired for Special Economic Zone (SEZ) during the UPA regime.

"Unnecessary criticism is been levelled against the government. More than 2 lakh acres of land was been acquired for SEZ and other activities by the previous government in the last 10 years. What are their answers to this? Our government has not taken any major portion of land," he said.

The minister also criticised senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh over his remarks that the NDA government's Land Acquisition Bill was like 'Sanjeevani' for the revival of Congress party.

He said, "Your version of Land Acquisition Bill did not work as 'Sanjeevani' and you lost miserably as people doubted your integrity, commitment.

Defending the land Bill, he said, "Land acquisition Bill is going to benefit the rural people, farming community. We are not trying to force anything on anybody. Our government will not do anything against farmers."

He asked the Opposition, not to continue with the disinformation campaign. It will not benefit anybody.

He further said, "We should rather have discussions on demands for Finance Bill, Black Money Bill and Goods and Service Tax Bill.