Farmers stage protest outside Nirman Bhawan

A group of farmers led by Swaraj India today protested outside Nirman Bhawan, which houses the office of the Housing and Urban Affairs (HUA) Ministry, against the delay in implementation of land pooling policy, the party said.

Earlier, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) vice-chairman Udai Pratap Singh had said that the land pooling policy was ready and hopefully" by July-end, it would be submitted to the ministry which would then notify it.

Swaraj India Delhi State President Anupam tweeted about the protest and alleged that HUA Minister Hardeep Singh Puri got the farmers, who had come to ask for their rights, detained at a police station.

Responding to his allegations, Puri in a tweet said, I never cease to be amazed by the extent to which people go to spread #FakeNews. I am in Lucknow, & not even in Delhi today. By the way, I regularly meet concerned citizens including farmers, traders & residents in my office. Better luck next time.

Anupam replied back saying he don't expect one of the rare sensible ministers like you (Puri) to term everything that doesn't suit as fake news.

Anupam also posed questions regarding landholding, development charges and time of implementation of policy.

In response to the queries, Puri asked him to wait for the real facts on land pooling and advised him not to use social media for disinformation.

The farmers also pressed for scrapping of the mandatory provision of five acre landholding and development charges in the yet-to-be-notified policy.