'Bhoodan movement was clever ploy to deceive the poor'

A Bihar minister courted controversy in the Assembly today by dubbing Acharya Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan Movement as a means to 'deceive' the landless and poor about their rights.
"Bhoodan movement has turned out to be a means (by landowners) to cheat the landless and the poor as those people parting with land for distribution among the landless never had the noble intention of empowering the poor," Revenue and Land Reforms Minister Ramai Ram said.
"The district committee members did not share Vinobaji's ideals and had joined his campaign only to fool the deprived people of their land rights, which has eluded them for the past several decades," Ram said.

The landowners joined the Bhoodan movement to donate their excess land for distribution among the landless at a time which coincided with the rising aspiration among the deprived people about their land rights and the landless were set to capture land by force.
The same landowners, however, became members of the district committees for distribution of land to landless ones under the Bhoodan movement and never parted with their rights, he claimed.
The minister said the NDA government in the state was committed to distribute three decimal land to all landless mahadalit families and only 20 per cent of the intended beneficiaries were left.