Rahul takes on Mayawati, says padyatra not drama

Winding up his four-day “padyatra” in the battle against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused her government of acquiring farmers’ lands for golf courses and racing tracks and firing upon poor farmers when they protest.

Addressing a Kisan Mahapanchayat, capping his 70-km foot march through the villages of Greater Noida and Aligarh district, he rejected criticism that he was enacting a “drama”, apparently referring to Mayawati’s description of his march as “nautanki”.

Using some strong words for his rival in the campaign seen as preparations for the next year Assembly elections, Gandhi said that in Uttar Pradesh a farmer gets to know about the acquisition of his land only when the builder comes and tells him that the land belongs to him.

“In UP, we are not against development or making roads. But this land is being taken away to make golf courses, colonies and racing track from farmers and that is why they are angry.

“The farmer says if in Lucknow a rich person's land is taken he is given the market rate but when it comes to a poor farmer he is fired upon, beaten, and government does not talk to us,” Gandhi said.

An estimated crowd of about 10,000-15,000 farmers attended the Mahapanchayat, whose venue became soggy in early morning rains, capping the padyatra that began in the villages of Bhatta-Parsaul, the epicentre of a violent agitation against land acquisition in Greater Noida in May.

Dismissing criticism about his campaign, Gandhi saidmany people felt it was a drama. “A politician needs to go to people and talk to them and that is what I believe,” he said.

Referring to land acquisition law, Gandhi said some farmers are worried about it because it is old and they have problems with it.

“We will try to bring such a law that will benefit the farmer. But only changing the law won’t help because the same law exists in Haryana and UP but Haryana government takes people into confidence and talks to them.

“UP government doesn't talk to the people. When a farmer demands his rights government orders firing on him,” he said.

Gandhi said after the agitation in Bhatta-Parsaul, Mayawati came out with a new policy on land acquisition which he said will not benefit the affected people there. “That is why I set out on this padyatra,” he added.

He said when farmers protested in Bhatta-Parsaum two months ago, police fired and some of them died. It was sad that these farmers had done nothing wrong and he came to know about this when he visited these places. They only told the government that if the government wants their land, pay adequate compensation but police in turn fired and beat them up.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/84141" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f303cd2c7b2710c4f1e0c57a8fe0208b" value="form-f303cd2c7b2710c4f1e0c57a8fe0208b" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="84481828" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.