NEW DELHI : The Government will be put on the mat on Tuesday, the first working day of the two-and-a-half-month long budget session of Parliament over the ordinance it issued to dilute the land acquisition law in the name of removing hindrances to development and fast industrialisation.
Though the budget session technically begins on Monday with the President’s address to the joint session, the coming Tuesday will witness protests both inside and outside Parliament, when the two Houses get down to business. Even the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, the economic wing of the RSS, has been agitating for withdrawal of the ordinance. Several organisations of farmers and trade unions will be holding rallies near Parliament, while topping the protests will be a dharna by social activist Anna Hazare at the Jantar Mantar here. It will not be surprising if the new Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also turns up to join the protests, as his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also critical of the ordinance.
Inside Parliament, the Congress will be leading
the opposition parties’ joint protest. It has announced stalling both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to insist on revocation of the land ordinance that is a throwback to the forcible acquisition of the farmers’ land as practised under the 1894 law of the British era.
The government is equally determined to push the ordinance-related bill as its ministers are even threatening to convene a joint session of Parliament if the Opposition, by virtue of a majority in the Rajya Sabha stalls it. The ordinance, enacted on December 29, makes significant changes in the 2013 law, the most draconian being the removal of the consent clause to acquire land for the five industrial corridor areas, PPP projects, rural infrastructure, affordable housing and defence.
The Congress has a political stake in opposing this backdoor entry of the exploitative British law, since it was the Congress-led UPA-II Government that pursued and got enacted the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act in 2013 to replace the 119-year old acquisition law.
Former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh of the Congress, who was active in mobilising all the parties to get the new law passed in 2013, on Wednesday said this “black ordinance” will completely eliminate the interests of farmers and those dependent on agriculture for their livelihood.
He pointed out that all opposition parties and several people’s movements planning to gather in Delhi for a massive demonstration next Tuesday are opposed to the ordinance that seeks to give “all powers back to the collector which we had taken away and given to the gram sabhas.”
The Congress strategists have decided on daily protests in Parliament and ensuring the defeat of the Bill that the government will have to bring in this session to replace the ordinance. For them, the 2013 Land Acquisition Act has immense importance, since it was a landmark legislation of the UPA-II and the brainchild of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.Jairam Ramesh says: “In our 2013 law, we had compensation for not just land owners but also livelihood losers, people whose livelihood depend on the land which is being acquired. That is going to be completely eliminated if the ordinance becomes a law. So in many ways, the ordinance is a return to 1894.”
He wondered how the BJP could have done a U-turn just to please a handful of the industrialists wanting the government to forcibly take away agricultural land from farmers. Was it the same BJP that had supported the 2013 law, he questioned, noting that the UPA Government had incorporated three amendments in the Act as suggested by the BJP. Pointing out how all political parties had joined hands to pass the law after 15 hours of debate in Parliament, Jairam said: “Rajnath Singh (now home minister) was the opening batsman in Lok Sabha and (his BJP colleague) Vinay Katiyar in Rajya Sabha. And within eight months, BJP has done a U-turn.” He wondered how Rajnath Singh, who claims himself to be a farmers’ leader, could agree to deprive them of the rights they had secured through the 2013 law.
Jairam is part of a trio of Congress MPs constituted by Sonia Gandhi to fine-tune the party’s strategy and protests. The former commerce minister, Anand Sharma, deputy leader of the Congress in the Rajya Sabha, and the former food minister, K V Thomas, are members of this high-power group.
From Our Bureau
