Sounding the battle cry in Uttar Pradesh, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused the Mayawati government of forcibly acquiring farmers’ lands for real estate development, golf courses and race tracks.
Raising the issue of the Bhatta-Parsaul farmers unrest in UP, the general secretary targeted the state administration for the police firing on the farmers. “Instead of holding talks, farmers in UP are being fired upon and killed,” said Mr Gandhi. He called upon the farmers to become part of the law-making process for the Land Acquisition Bill.
Mr Gandhi, who carried out 70-km padyatra to meet farmers in Greater Noida’s villages and in Aligarh district, addressed the much-awaited Kisan Mahapanch-ayat. The mahapanchayat is the beginning of the battle between the Mayawati-led BSP and the Congress in the state, where Assembly elections will be held early next year.
Mr Gandhi’s attempt to make inroads into UP has not merely worried the BSP, it has also put other political rivals — the Samajwadi Party and the BJP — on full alert. Taking the battle to the Opposition camp, which had been terming his “padyatra” a “political stunt and drama”, Mr Gandhi hit back: “Agar ye nautanki hai to theek hai (If this is a stunt, then so be it).” Nearly 15,000 farmers had gathered on Saturday morning to hear Mr Gandhi speak. With a host of top UP Congress leaders and ministers seated behind him, Mr Gandhi made it clear that it was time to establish mass contact. “Politicians should go to the people and talk to them,” he declared. Listening to him were Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Jitin Prasada, Sachin Pilot and Pradeep Jain, among others. The signal was loud and clear.
Earlier, he listened to the grievances of farmers from the villages of Bhatta-Parsaul, the nerve centre of the violent agitation against land acquisition in Greater Noida in May, in Greater Noida and Tappal village in Aligarh area, for over an hour. Then he told them: “In chaar dinon mein jo maine seekha hai woh Delhi mein rah kar seekh nahi pata (What I have learnt in the last four days I would not have been able to learn in Delhi).”
”In Haryana we have the best land acquisition policy. Unlike UP, the government in Haryana adequately compensates farmers and ensures that they get a regular income for the next 33 years.” He pointed out that in Haryana even workers hit by land acquisition were being provided work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
He told the gathering that the farmers told him they were not against any development. “But they are unhappy” with the compensation and the way their lands are being acquired, he said. “The state government does not inform the farmers while acquiring their lands,” Mr Gandhi said. “A farmer told me that 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 the government does not talk to them,” Mr Gandhi told the farmers.
Trying to consolidate the party’s rural vote bank, Mr Gandhi attacked the Mayawati administration for inadequate laws to protect farmers’ rights. Referring to the new land policy the Mayawati government introduced after the Bhatta-Parasaul agitation, Mr Gandhi said the “law will not benefit the farmers”. “That is why I embarked on this padayatra,” he added.