Land bill: Union minister attacks Rahul Gandhi with Vadra barb

Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday attacked the Congress party, saying it has no right to raise the land bill issue since its leadership had remained mute spectator to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra acquiring land in various states at throwaway prices.

She reacted within hours of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, at a rally in New Delhi, criticising Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government over the new land acquisition bill.

"The Congress has lost the moral right to question the land acquisition bill when it has remained mute spectator to Robert Vadra's trick wherein his Rs.1 lakh (worth) company purchased land of poor farmers. First Congress should ensure that the poor farmers' land is given back to them from Vadra," Badal told media on the sidelines of an event in Bathinda district in Punjab, 225 km from here.

Vadra has been in the thick of controversies over land purchase of hundreds of acres in Haryana and Rajasthan. Both states had Congress governments when Vadra and his companies went on a land-buying spree.

In certain cases, Vadra and his companies sold the land to others, including realty companies, for huge profits running into millions of rupees.

Calling the farmers' rally of the Congress on the land bill a "flop show and mere drama", the food processing minister said the Congress was only trying to mislead farmers.

"The land acquisition bill is a farmer-friendly legislation that safeguards the interests of farmers. Sadly enough, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is back after two months' vacationing, has run out of issues and hence is heading this issueless campaign," she said.

She said Punjab had the best land acquisition policy under which farmers are paid 30 to 40 percent more than the current market price.

"This is the prime reason behind land acquisition going smoothly in the state for the past 10 years and the Centre should replicate the same policy elsewhere in India," Badal said.

She accused the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government of hastily putting up the land acquisition bill before the April-May 2014 general elections. She said the Modi government had rectified the earlier bill and made it farmer-friendly.

"The Congress does not want the farming community to prosper, the way it has done in the 60 years of its rule over India," she said.