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Ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition Congress in Chhattisgarh have entered into a heated debate over the issue of land acquisition bill.
“The Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Raman Singh backing the land acquisition bill in the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi had endorsed that the BJP government in Chhattisgarh was anti-farmer,” state Congress spokesperson Shailesh Nitin Trivedi said.
He said Singh supporting the bill was linked to the internal politics of the ruling party.
Trivedi alleged that the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister was politically “weak” in the party circle following corruption cases exposure in the state. Just to consolidate his position in front of Prime Minister and the party, Singh supported the bill. “The Congress party wants to ask only one question; how proposed land acquisition bill is going to help the farmers in Chhattisgarh”? , the Congress spokesperson said.
Stating that the land acquisition bill was only a medium to forcefully snatch farmers’ land, Trivedi said if the BJP government was really serious to protect the interests of the farmers, it should ensure that their consent was required for acquiring their land. The proposed bill would make the farmers labourers in their own land, he added.
The BJP had lashed out at Congress and said the opposition party was trying to take political mileage from the issue. “Whatever the Congress leaders are telling had been misguiding and far away from the facts,” BJP state spokesperson Sacchidanand Upasne said.
During the recent visit of Rahul Gandhi in Chhattisgarh, farmers exposed the problems that they faced when Congress government acquired their land and ousted them, Upasne said, adding that the Congress leaders did not have any answer to the issues raised by farmers. Many people who lost their land when Bango and Dhamtari dams were built during Congress regime were still struggling for compensation, he added.
