Back to Bhatta-Parsaul: Congress takes on BJP's land acquisition ordinance

In a bid to revive its fortunes and drum up support against the BJP-led government’s land acquisition ordinance, the Congress returned to Bhatta Parsaul, the same village in Greater Noida from where its Vice President Rahul Gandhi had launched an agitation in 2011 that led to the Land Acquisition Act being passed by the UPA government. At a meeting with farmers, former union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh claimed that the BJP government believed in ‘ghar wapsi’ not ‘zameen wapsi’(return of land) and said that the Narendra Modi government was “snatching away all the rights” given to farmers by the UPA regime. “Our law had said the acquired land would be given back to their owners if it remains unused for five years. But the BJP government has done away with it… They believe in ‘ghar wapsi’ not ‘zameen wapsi’ to farmers,” Ramesh said. The ordinance has given absolute power to the government and refuses to give any say to the villagers in the land acquisition process, he added. [caption id=“attachment_2047251” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sonia and Rahul Gandhi during the Congress Working Committee meet. PTI image[/caption] “We had taken away rights from district collectors and given them to you. The BJP government has again snatched them from you and given them to collectors,” he told farmers. This is an atrocity against farmers and democracy as well, he said. In 2011, Rahul Gandhi made headlines after he joined an agitation against land acquisition in the region by sneaking into Bhatta Parsaul on a motorcycle in the early hours of the morning, giving a police cordon the slip. However, the Congress Vice President was absent on Wednesday at the beginning of a campaign that could probably be a topic of heated debate in the upcoming session of Parliament as well. The Congress also held a press conference in Delhi against the land ordinance in which it accused the Narendra Modi government of effecting a “clampdown” on expenditure in agriculture, education and defence sectors to “mechanically make up” for rising fiscal deficit. Party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi dubbed the ordinance to effect changes in the land acquisition law the “land snatching, land grabbing ordinance” and alleged “it provides for corporates and takes away the heart and soul of the farmer friendly law.” Singhvi also targeted the government for a “cut to the extent of 45 percent in disbursal of funds to the states under MNREGA”, saying the NDA government did this “big slash” in job scheme’s fund only because it was brought by the UPA government." The Congress spokesperson accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not acting acting against provocative speeches made by VHP and “undesirable” RSS leaders. The spokesperson said there has been cut in the minimum support price of cotton and that a cotton farmer had also committed suicide in the BJP-ruled Gujarat. Holding that the government was doing it to “mechanically cut down fiscal deficit”, Singhvi alleged that a budgetary cut of 20 percent to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore was done in the health sector and one third of this cut was in HIV prevention, over Rs 6,000 crore cut done in education sector and Rs 20,000 crore in rural development and sanitation. “Now a cut of Rs 13,000 crore has been done in Indian Army, Airforce and Navy,” Singhvi alleged, and asked whether it was a way to control the fiscal deficit. “Controlling fiscal deficit does not mean you will take away the bread of the poor and hurt national security. Paradoxically it is coming at a time when prices of international crude oil have come down almost by half,” he said. The party’s all out attack against the government came a day after the Congress Working Committee resolved to carry out nationwide agitations against “wrong policies” of the NDA dispensation including the ordinance and Sonia Gandhi alleged a “polarization strategy” behind provocative remarks of Hindutva groups. However, while the Congress may be betting big on its agitation on the land ordinance, and the connection that its Vice President Rahul Gandhi seemed to have made with the villages of Bhatta Parsaul in 2011, the party perhaps shouldn’t bet its electoral fortunes on it. Despite Gandhi earning a lot of goodwill in the area for joining the agitation the party failed to win a seat from the area during the state polls in 2012. with inputs from PTI