New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday criticised West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s remarks on the recently passed land ordinance act, and terming the TMC chief’s stand as ‘against the interest’ of her state.
“As a Chief Minister, as a constitutional head of the state, she [Banerjee] is bound to implement the law. We leave it to the people of Bengal, who will judge Mamata on her opposition to a very progressive legislation that the Centre has planned,” BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao told ANI.
Rao was reacting to Banerjee’s terming the ordinance as ‘black ordinance’ and her urging people to burn symbolic copies of it.
The BJP leader further accused Banerjee of taking a negative role as far as industrialisationis concerned, noting her strident opposition to the Nano car project in Singur that saw Tata Motors abandoning the project midway.
“Mamata Banerjee has always taken a very negative role as far as the industrialisation of West Bengal is concerned. The manner with which she unleashed protests in West Bengal and ensured that the Tatas exited from the Nano project in West Bengal shows her history of anti-development efforts…,” he said.
Announcing the Union Cabinet’s decision on Monday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said that the ordinance intends to make a fair balance between the interest of farmers and industry.
The new law, which will come into effect from January 1, 2015, will see the owners of land acquired via laws exempted under the act being eligible for a similar compensation.
The ordinance is being brought as the government failed to amend as many as 13 central legislations to bring their rehabilitation and resettlement and compensation provisions at par with those of the new Land Acquisition Act for buying land across the country.
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, came into force on January 1, this year.
