The Congress on Wednesday returned to Bhatta Parsaul — the village near Delhi from where vice-president Rahul Gandhi launched his campaign in 2011 for the subsequent enactment of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act — to protest the Modi government’s decision to dilute its provisions by way of an ordinance.
The agitation was launched in the presence of Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh who had steered the “landmark” Act through Parliament as UPA’s Rural Development Minister. “If Chikmagalur was the ‘sanjeevani’ for the Congress in 1977, the land ordinance of the Modi government could work the same way for us in 2015,” Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu .
Addressing the gathering in the village, Mr. Ramesh said the land ordinance was one of several instances of the Modi government taking away the rights given to the people by the UPA government. Meanwhile, in the Capital, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi termed it a “land grabbing ordinance.”
The Congress is planning similar meetings, demonstrations and get-togethers with farmers’ organisations to mobilise opinion against the ordinance both inside and outside Parliament.
Addressing the Congress Working Committee on Tuesday, party president Sonia Gandhi said there was a need to communicate effectively that the Modi government was not serving the national interest by bypassing parliamentary scrutiny and debate.
“We need to question the extraordinary urgency to introduce some of these ordinances. Is there any ulterior motive behind this hurry?,” Mr. Gandhi said, adding that with the land ordinance, the government had effectively destroyed the landmark legislation and brought back the law passed by the British in 1894 through the backdoor.
