Coming down heavily on the ordinance to amend the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday said she would not allow the Act to be implemented in the State.
“It is a challenge that I won’t allow them to implement it here. They (Centre) will have to do it on my dead body,” she said addressing a rally at Kharagpur in Paschim Medinipur district.
Ms Banerjee, who catapulted to political prominence after her protest movements against forcible land acquisition in Singur and Nandigram, said that the amendment empowers the Centre to forcibly occupy land at gun point.
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“The Narendra Modi government has brought in more difficult times than the emergency,” Ms Banerjee said, directing her party supporters to protest this ‘black’ ordinance by symbolically burning copies of the document.
At the public gathering, she said she had made the CPI(M) bite the dust and would ravage the BJP in a similar manner.
The new amendment empowers the Government to acquire land without consulting the farmer in certain categories. The Government may not consider the nature of fertility of the land, which was mandatory under the Act.
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Warning against anti-party activities “We will not accept any anti-party activity. If the party is not there, the individual is none-existent,” Ms Banerjee said.