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The government’s land acquisition Bill is increasingly becoming too hot to handle for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliates and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) partners like the Shiromani Akali Dal.
At Monday’s meeting of the joint parliamentary committee on the Bill, some RSS arms opposed amendments the government has mooted to the 2013 land acquisition Act. Leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and former Bharatiya Janata Party leader K N Govindacharya, who heads the Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan, have written to the panel arguing against the amendments.
Some NDA allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal, too, are not in favour of amendments dropping the consent clause and doing away with social impact assessment. Punjab, ruled by a coalition of the Akali Dal and the BJP, has conveyed to the panel it does not support some of the amendments. Punjab and Odisha are against deletion of these two clauses.
RSS affiliates such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and Akhil Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram on Monday appeared before the joint committee of Parliament at its sixth meeting. The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh said it favoured retaining a diluted consent clause.
The United Progressive Alliance’s law allowed land acquisition if two-thirds of those affected agreed to it. The NDA’s amendments, pushed through in an ordinance, deleted this clause. The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh said at least the consent of 51 per cent of the people should be taken.
On retaining social impact assessment, the government has argued state governments, which will implement the law, can retain the clause.
The RSS affiliates raised questions on land acquisition for industrial corridors and the definition of private entity. The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh was also against scrapping a clause that requires acquired land to be returned to the owner if left unused for five years.
The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, which had in May staged a protest at Jantar Mantar here against the land ordinance, has slammed several provisions of the Bill as “detestable and unacceptable”.
In a written representation to the panel, Santosh Golechha, Rajya Sampark Pramukh of the VHP in Chhattisgarh, flagged concerns about amending Section 24 (2) of the Act that relates to the five-year clause. He demanded that in case of Section 24 (2) coming into force, the maximum market price of the acquired land on January 2015 should be applicable in all pending cases under the old Act.
In a separate written representation to the panel, former BJP ideologue Govindacharya slammed NDA over land ordinance issue and questioned the "haste" in changing provisions of 2013 land acquisition law saying this has sent a message that it is being done to further the interests of capitalists at the cost of farmers.
"Had the BJP made any promise to change the 2013 land acquisition law in its election manifesto? If not, what mentality does it denote to change it in haste by bringing an ordinance?" Govindacharya, who will appear before the panel tomorrow, has stated. “This message has gone far and wide that the earlier law is being changed to promote the interest of industrialists and capitalists in place of the interests of the common man and farmers," Govindacharya has written.
Swaraj Abhiyan's Yogendra Yadav appeared before the panel today. He said the government has made Land Acquisition Act into a "land grabbing" one. Yadav has initiated the Jan Kisan Andolan which plans to take out a protest march of farmers to Parliament in August.
The 30-member joint committee, headed by BJP's SS Ahluwalia, needs to submits its report by the first week of the monsoon session of Parliament., likely to being in mid-July.
