Oppose land bill in farmers’ interest, Jairam asks SAD - Says Cong will not allow bill to pass Rajya Sabha test

Sunday, 05/04/2015

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CHANDIGARH: Former Union minister and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Saturday appealed to all political parties, especially the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), to oppose the land acquisition bill in ‘farmers’ interest’, which is again being tabled in the Lok Sabha.

Briefing newspersons, Ramesh, who was accompanied by Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa, Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar and Chandigarh party chief Pardeep Chhabra, said the Congress would not allow the land acquisition bill to be passed in the Rajya Sabha.

“We will oppose it at all levels — in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, gram sabha (village level), janata sabha (people) and sadak sabha (roads),” he said. He also urged the parties that consider themselves pro-farmer, to join the cause. “Though the Akali Dal is our political rival and its members in Parliament voted for it, we should keep politics separate in the farmers’ interests,” he said and wondered how the SAD leaders, who were against the bill earlier, changed side now because of some match-fixing, Ramesh said.

He said a maha rally of farmers was being organised in Delhi on April 19 and farmers from all over the country would participate in it.

To a query on possible joint session, he said it was up to the centre to call a joint session of Parliament on the bill, though before the joint session, the government would face the first hurdle in the Rajya Sabha. He said while the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party, JD(U), Trinamool Congress and other parties were against the bill, only time would tell which side the Shiv Sena and the SAD would go.

He also flayed Union rural development Birender Singh saying he was surprised over his silence on the land bill as he claims to be a farmers’ leader.

Ramesh termed the bill as a ‘sanjeevni’ for the Congress and said that the party was demanding that the amendments be rolled back by the centre in the interest of the farmers. On being asked to elaborate on ‘sanjeevni’, he said that Congress was not a social organisation, but was a political party. Hence there was a need to fight a political battle on such issues.

Ramesh also took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to task for what he alleged as “lying” to the public in his Mann Ki Baat’’ programme on radio on the land acquisition bill.