The former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda has accused the ruling Congress of “harassing” farmers of Emme Doddi in Kadur taluk of Chikmagalur district and surrounding villages, which come under the Hassan Lok Sabha constituency represented by him, “for political reasons.”
Threatens dharna
Seeking a high-level probe into what he described as an “atrocity” unleashed against farmers on September 12, he cautioned of launching a dharna outside the office of the Chikmagalur Deputy Commissioner on Monday in protest against “injustice being meted out to farmers.”
The police had arrested over 30 people in these villages in connection with the clash between farmers and Forest Department officials on September 12 and cases were booked against hundreds of farmers. “The Congress government has raked up a six-decade-old land dispute, with only a few months left for the Lok Sabha elections,” he alleged.
Addressing presspersons, Mr. Gowda said people had deserted their homes fearing police action. The police and forest officials unleashed terror in over 30 villages in and around Emme Doddi, he alleged.
Describing the situation in Emme Doddi and surrounding villages, Mr. Gowda observed that farmers were being victimised, despite direction from the Karnataka High Court.
According to Mr. Gowda, farmers in and around Emme Doddi are cultivating on 21,393 acres of land from the past 60 years and seeking regularisation of their ‘bagair hukum’ land. But successive governments, including the Janata Dal government headed by him and JD(S)–Congress coalition government, had failed to settle the dispute and regularise their right to cultivation, he said.
When the Forest Department approached the court seeking direction to evict the farmers, the court imposed a stay, asking the authorities to submit records in support of their claims. “Farmers are being victimised because of confusion over the records of both Forest and Revenue departments,” he said.
‘People will decide’
Mr. Gowda, reacting to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) naming Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha election, said “neither the BJP nor the Congress can decide the Prime Minister of the country”.
“It is the people who have a final say on the issue,” he said.
