Cong to gherao assembly on March 24

Friday, 20/03/2015

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Chandigarh : Punjab Congress will gherao the state Assembly currently in Budget session on March 24 to protest against the “dilution” of the land acquisition legislation by the Centre.

Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa said that the programme had been finalised in consultation with AICC general secretary Shakeel Ahmed, AICC secretary and party’s Punjab affairs incharge Harish Chaudhary, and CLP leader Sunil Jakhar.

“All the sitting MPs, MLAs, candidates, office bearers and heads of frontal organisation and cells of PPCC have been asked to mobilise the workers for the protest,” Bajwa said in a statement here.

He said farmers all over the country were agitated against this ‘pernicious’ move of the Narendra Modi government to "appease the corporates".

"It was the UPA that had brought out the land legislation to protect the interests of the farmers but the same had been diluted by this anti-farmer government," he said.

He said another issue was the fixing the prices on the basis of the Swaminathan Committee recommendations according to which the farmers should get at least 50 per cent profit over and above the cost of inputs. He said it was also the poll promise of the BJP from which the party had backtracked after coming to power.

Bajwa listed the proposed unbundling of the Food Corporation of India as the third major step of this government against the farmers. The BJP government would not be allowed to "play with the future" of farming community in the country as more than 60 per cent of the population in the country was depended upon agriculture, he said.

Zira, others stage protest

Punjab Congress Kisan Khet Mazdoor Cell chairman Inderjit Singh Zira along with others staged a protest outside the state Assembly against the Land Acquisition Bill.Terming the bill as ‘anti-farmer’, Zira said already all opposition parties have started protests against this Bill and all farmer organisations are also on the streets."This anti-farmer bill will not be allowed to be cleared from the Rajya Sabha at any cost," he asserted.Later, he was taken into preventive custody with 13 supporters, consecutively for the third day during the ongoing Budget session of Assembly.Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab's Convener Sucha Singh Hottepur held a day-long hunger strike to register his party's protest against the Bill.