Hyderabad: The state legislature passed the Telangana Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (Telangana Amendment Act, 2016) within 10 minutes and without debate.
Three amendments were made to the Act passed in December 2016 after the Centre objected to some provisions.
The first one brought the Act into force from June 1, 2014; the second promised to revise market rates of land before acquisition and the third brought compensation in line with the Centre’s Act.
The lack of debate was due to the Congress MLAs creating a ruckus because they wanted a debate on the lack of minimum support price for chilli farmers and the violence at the Khammam market yard, first.
When the government refused, the Assembly turned into a battlefield as Congress MLAs clashed with marshals after they were prevented from storming the Speaker's podium. In the melee, the government got the amendments passed with a voice vote.
Congress noise halts MIM talk
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao was not present for this special session of the Legislature and Deputy CM Mohd Mahmood Ali moved the amendments. While the Assembly passed the Act in eight minutes, the Council passed the same in just three minutes after which both the Houses were adjourned sine die. The Act will now be sent for the President’s assent through the Central government.
The trouble began soon after the House resumed its sitting at 11 am — Sunday’s session is being seen as an extension of the Budget Session which has not been prorogued. The Congress MLAs tried to storm the podium after the Speaker rejected their demand to debate farmers' issues first. However, a large number of marshals were deployed in the House and moved towards the MLAs and stopped them from coming to the podium. This led to clashes between the MLAs and marshals. Women MLAs D.K. Aruna and N. Padmavathi strongly objected at the way the women marshals behaved with them.
MLAs T. Rammohan Reddy and S.A. Sampath Kumar had a fight with marshals when they were sto-pped. With no one from the Congress willing to initiate the debate on the amendme-nts after repeated requests from Speaker S. Madhus-udhana Chary, he asked MIM members to speak. As no Opposition members were present in the House at the time, Legislative Affairs Minister T Harish Rao and other TRS MLAs rushed outside the House to call MIM members. TD and BJP MLAs were not present in the House as they had been suspended for the entire Budget session. MIM MLA Pasha Quadri initiated the debate but could not make any headway because of the loud slogan shouting from the Congress MLAs.
